Demand a 24 Hour Rape and Sexual Assault Helpline - SIGN THE PETITION!

As part of At the Root’s first campaign (which will be launched soon), I have set up a petition to the Prime Minister, asking that the Government provide the funding and expertise for a much-needed 24 Hour National Helpline for Victims of Rape and Sexual Assault. The petition reads:

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Provide the funding to set up a National 24 Hour Helpline for Victims of Rape and Sexual Assault.

Far too many people in the UK do not have access to a Rape Crisis centre or a Sexual Assault Referral Centre. The facilities that do exist for victims of rape and sexual assault are seriously stretched, as they struggle with not enough funding and not enough staff.

In those areas where victims do have access to a Rape Crisis Centre or SARC, people often have difficulty getting through on the telephone, and once through, cannot always talk for as long as is needed due to other pressures on the over-worked staff.

It is time that the funding and expertise were put in place to set up a National 24 Hour Helpline for victims of rape and sexual assault. It is very much needed, in this country where rape and sexual assault are prevelant, yet the conviction rate for these crimes is at an all time low.

The government must take this issue seriously, and setting up a national 24 hour helpline would be a vital step in helping the thousands of victims who have no access to a Rape Crisis Centre or SARC.”

Please follow this link to sign the petition, and try to get as many other people as you can to do so too. To get a response from the PM we need at least 200 signatures, so if you feel as strongly about this issue as I do, please spread the word.

Thanks

Debs xx

Women’s Aid Beat the Silence Campaign - Buy the T-Shirt!

Women’s Aid and Asda have got together to produce awareness raising t-shirts for Women’s Aid’s ACT campaign.

Admit there is a problem
Call it by its name - domestic violence
Tell someone about it

The t-shirts are available in pink, black or white and cost only 6 pounds each, from these participating Asda stores:

Bridge of Dee, Aberdeen
Cardiff Coryton Supercentre, Cardiff
Cumbernauld, Strathclyde
Eastlands Supercentre, Bradford
Edinburgh Supercentre, Brunstane
Great Bridge Supercentre, Tipton
Havant Supercentre, Havant
Huyton Supercentre, Liverpool
Kingswood, Hull
Leicester Supercentre, Braunstone
Livingston Supercentre, Livingston
Milton Keynes Supercentre, Milton Keynes
Minworth Supercentre, Sutton Coldfield
Patchway Supercentre, Bristol
Queensferry Supercentre, Clwyd
Sheffield Supercentre, Sheffield
Swindon Haydon Supercentre, Orbital Shopping Park
Tamworth Supercentre, Tamworth
Trafford Park, Manchester
Watford Supercentre, Watford
Wigan Supercentre, Wigan
Cortonwood Living, Cortonwood Retail Park, Barnsley
Durham Living, Arnison Retail Centre, Durham
Glasgow Fort Living, Glasgow
Thurrock Living, Lakeside Retail Park
Tottenham Living, Tottenham Hale Retail Park
Leeds Living, Leeds Crown Point Retail Park
Altrincham Living, Altrincham
Byker Living, Newcastle Shopping Park, Fosseway
Lincoln (Valentine) Living, Lincoln
Walsall Living, Crown Wharf Shopping Park
Belfast Living, Belfast
Oldham Living, Oldham
Dartford Living, Dartford

Unbelievable Denial of Women’s Experience

A “Doctor” has found my post on Medical Rape via the latest Britblog Roundup at Redemption Blues.  He not only patronised me in a comment on the article (not published because this blog is women-only) by saying he sympathised with what had happened to me, but that it was not rape and to call it rape was to insult women who had experienced “real” rape, he also posted about it here.

Some quotes, and my responses:

“(HSG) conveys in one word all the information that Debs can only convey in a paragraph. It’s not a simple test. It is a sophisticated investigation requiring a high level of skill. Debs does not understand it:

When done properly, this procedure should be roughly the same discomfort level as a smear test, and last about 5 minutes. (Debs)

Simply not true. A smear usually requires a vaginal speculum to be in place for less than a minute. This test takes much longer.”

I have had both smears and HSG’s done several times - I know exactly how long both of them take, and what they entail, thank you.

“Debs does not understand female anatomy.”

I studied nursing at University for 2 years, and also, because of fertility problems, made a personal study of female anatomy and things that can go wrong with it.  I understand female anatomy perfectly well, which is why, when my consultant told me I had a “tilted uterus” I knew exactly what he meant, unlike this “doctor”.

“No, Debs, you have not ever been raped. If you had, you would not be talking like this.”

We shall come back to this one later.

“At this stage, one worries about Deb’s psychological status. She really does have an obsession, doesn’t she? One wonders how she ever managed to allow herself to be impregnated in the first place.”

My “psychological status” is just fine, thanks.  That is how I can recognise denial of women’s experience when I see it, especially when the one doing the denying uses the age-old trick of informing women they are mad/should see a shrink/need psychological help when what the women are actually doing is expressing very natural anger and pain at what they have experienced in life at the hands of men.

“We now realise that Debs and Amity are not real feminists. They are part-time coffee-shop feminists, doing a bit of “right on” pseudo-feminist blogging between shopping expeditions and the school run. Debs and Amity are a disgrace to real feminism. They both describe admittedly unpleasant experiences in terms that any woman who has really been raped would find offensive. This sort of hysterical nonsense is frequently brought up by the pseudo-feminists as a prelude to justifying home deliveries, if possible managed by independent midwives.”

As I will explain in a little while, I am a woman who has “really been raped” and I don’t find the terms in which these experiences are described offensive at all.  I find them true.  Also, as well as not being mad/in need of help, I am also not “hysterical”.  This is another over-used, and this time specifically female, insult which merely belies how scared the “doctor” is by what I have said, scared that it is true, and scared that that leaves him not knowing what to do.

“Worst of all, pseudo-feminists like Debs and Amithy demean and trivialise the experience of women who have been raped.”

Again the assumption that Debs and “Amithy” have not “really been raped”.  And again, I have “really been raped”, and neither I nor Amity demean or trivialise that experience.  It is actually you, dear “doctor” who is demeaning and trivialising women’s real and lived experiences.  You have read two accounts of what the women consider to be rape, but they do not fit your own very narrow definition of the word “rape”, and so you are dismissive, patronising, and imply that the women need psychological help.  That is what is demeaning and trivialising, not women bravely relating their experiences, saying their truth, and speaking out for themselves and on behalf of the many other women who have had, and continue to have, similar experiences.  It is precisely attitudes like those diplayed by this “doctor” that illustrate the necessity for the feminist movement.

To get back to my particular favourite “doctor” quote, “No, Debs, you have not ever been raped. If you had, you would not be talking like this.”

What an incredibly arrogant and lazy assumption.  Actually, Dr Whoeverthefuckyouare, even if you do not believe this particular incident to be rape (your opinion on the matter is irrelevant anyway), I have experienced rape a total of 4 times by an ex-partner, although, as you gleefully describe what you believe to be ”real rape” as “being pounced on in the park and being pulled into the bushes,”  I doubt you would agree that the other 4 occasions were rape either, as they did not involve open spaces, or indeed any shrubbery.  Thankfully, it is the law that defines rape, not Dr Crippen, and all 4 occasions meet all the necessary criteria for rape, even with the absence of herbaceous borders.

So, in answer to your unpublished comment: No, Dr, you are wrong.  My saying this experience was rape is not insulting at all to women who have been raped, and many other women are raped in similar ways all the time by MALE health professionals, who, as I said in the original article, all too often have a complete disregard for women’s bodies and autonomy and just want to ‘get the job done’ to keep their professional credentials intact.  In short, they have no respect for women, much like your good self, Dr.

And, to remind us why we are all here, I have just received this comment from ‘Stunned’ on the original Medical Rape thread:

“I am so happy to find a place that has helped me make sense of what happened to me. For 32 years I have had painfree paps. The speculum has never hurt me, but my last experience ended hurting. As soon as the doctor opened the speculum I started so cry out… you are hurting me … ouch ouch ouch… you are hurting me… ouch ouch ouch….. The only comment from the doctor was “Bear with Me”…. I have been in shock for the last two weeks… in a way depressed because this episode traumatized me. As I tried to get more info the doctor was not forth comming as basically acted as if this was nothing of concern. Honestly, I’ve never been upthight or uncomfortable during these types of exams… but now I feel I have lost my trust. I never thought this was a possiblity that I would be in pain and the doctor insist on continuing. Sure it only lasted a minute or two, but I didn’t give consent for this.

I now know why I reacted so strongly to this experience… because it really was a form of rape. This doctor took my power away by not listening to me and treating me like a human being and not just a damm pap. She succeeded in getting that pap, but at what expense. The price I paid was too high.

Thanks for your insight. It has helped me heal.”

Thank you ‘Stunned’, I hope you are feeling okay now.

That is why I write about my experiences, that is why I am running a blog, that is why I am a woman-centred, woman-loving feminist.  I do not write about my experiences so that men can disect them, lord it over them, or make patronising comments about them, although that will obviously continue to happen, because they have the privilege, and, they believe, the right.

Listen to me, Dr Crippen, the next time you have to undergo a HSG or a smear test, give birth, or experience rape, get back to me and I may listen to what you have to say.  Until then, keep your over-privileged self-important mouth shut, why don’t you?

The 14th Carnival of Radical Feminists…

…is UP, and looking fabulous, at Maggie’s Meta Watershed.  Go, read. x

Fifth Carnival Against Pornography and Prostitution

Hi, and welcome to the Fifth Carnival Against Pornography and Prostitution! I want to say thank you once again to all those who have submitted work for this edition – there is so much good anti-pornstitution work being done out there, it’s really inspiring. Don’t forget, if you agree with the aims behind the Carnival, feel free to promote it on your own site/blog. The image on the right is there for the taking, if you would like to use it and link back to the Carnival Homepage, or you can just link to the Carnival on your blogroll, promote each edition, whatever you like, but most importantly of all, keep that great work coming in!

On with the fifth edition, then…

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First of all I have another petition for you to sign. This one has been set up by the campaign group Prostitution Reform, asking for reform to the current prostitution laws in the UK; specifying that the Government should look to follow the example of Sweden in making the purchase of sex illegal.

“The Petition of the undersigned, declares that the current laws on Prostitution in the UK are outdated for the twenty first century. The problems with trafficking in the UK demonstrate how the current laws do not assist in reducing prostitution nor do they help to protect vulnerable women who have been coerced or in many instances forced into prostitution. Although slavery was abolished in the UK almost 200 years ago, slavery still exists for many women in prostitution in the UK. We believe that serious action is now needed to combat this horrific human rights abuse.”

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Now, sit back and enjoy the show as Pisaquari of Buried Alive wipes the floor with a troll, who bleated about “free (yawn) expression” as he asserted his right to abuse women, in Warning: Consuming these images will likely make you view your wife, girlfriend, significant other, daughter, sister, female colleagues, or any random female person in public as sex objects for you to use and abuse.

“First of all, free expression does not exist. Expression does not exist without a cost–we really need to stop using this phrase, it is harmful in and of itself. Abusive even. We remove too much of our critical sensibilities with the idea of “free” and thus violators and abusers can move covertly in and out of our lives whilst committing sizable damage we can no more account for than understand.The question of expression’s costs, as far as “harm” is concerned, really becomes: at whose expense?”

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Holly’s Fight for Justice brings us the news that Five girls in care have been selling sex on Craiglist, police say

“The outcomes are terrible for these young women. The most positive outcome might be a jail sentence. The most negative outcome they could face would be death. “The sex trade is very risky.”Vancouver police have identified girls as young as 15 advertising sex on Craigslist.Child prostitution in Vancouver has largely shifted from the streets to the Internet, Houghton said.”

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Holly, in her post Now Every Girl Can Be a Pole Dancer at Menstrual Poetry, has found a Peekaboo Pole Dancing Kit, which even includes pretend money for that ‘real’ pole dancing experience, and which the makers are hoping to make into a game for Wii.

“With their booklet of dance moves, a garter and 100 peekaboo dance dollars to reenact the real thing, this stripper pole, they claim, is a sure fire way to spice things up the bedroom or what I found a little strange…to liven up a friend’s party. I’m sorry, but who wants to go to a party where everyone gets together and dance on a stripper pole?”

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NoPornNorthampton hark back to the horrifying case last year of the gang rape of a girl in Werribee, Australia, which the perpetrators filmed and then sold at their school, and eventually escaped with little more than a slap on the wrist. In The Werribee DVD; Group of boys sexually assault girl: Video sold in schools, connections are drawn, asking,

“where would teenagers get the idea to…

Assault a girl sexually as a group, demanding oral sex
Exploit a girl they might consider to be ‘dumb’
Insult her
Physically abuse her
Urinate on her
Force her to lick someone’s anus
Video record the assault
Sell the video to their peers
Insist that the girl “wanted to do it” despite her protests?”

(Warning, explicit content)

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Womensphere reports how Lost 400 children may have been trafficked into sex or drugs trade, telling of the shocking numbers of children who simply disappear from care in the UK.

“Anti-trafficking campaigners believe the missing children are often taken from care by their trafficker and then exploited for prostitution, domestic servitude and other illegal activities. Other children escape out of fear of being found by the trafficker and without money or identity papers fall prey to further abuse and exploitation.

According to records from 16 local authorities around England’s ports and airports, an estimated 408 children disappeared between July 2004 and July 2007. They are known by officialdom as unaccompanied asylum seekers and child protection campaigners believe most have been trafficked.”

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The First Amendment is only Sort of Cool by Nine Deuce at Rage Against the Man-chine discusses the merits (or not) of America’s First Amendment.

“It all comes down to the role of judges, and I’m a little worried about how many of them seem to think they’re doing free speech a favor by allowing companies like Extreme Associates (who I will NOT link to) to keep pumping out their how-to videos on rape, and by allowing various companies to keep producing virtual child porn. Several of these cases have come before the high courts in the last decades, and the pornographers win virtually every time.”

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The Captive Diaries blog tells us how an Oakland teen rebuilds life after prostitution

“Desiree was among the hundreds of children under 18 advertised on the site’s erotic services section. With one click on a blue link, girls called”Sexy Blonde Bombshell,” “Asian Rockstar Gone Wild” and “Ebony Playmate” appear on the screen wearing thongs and lacey bras.
Technology and cell phones have given pimps greater reach and the ability to solicit pedophiles from all over the country who are willing to pay top dollar for sex with children.
Demand is great, and the profits are huge. But Desiree and many young girls who turn tricks typically don’t take in any of that money.”

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The Captive Diaries also bring us Chicago: Prostitution looks chic, but truth is ugly, about Ashley Alexandra Dupre, who was paid for sex by Eliot Spitzer.

“This was not a love (or even a lust) story: The now-former New York governor wasn’t stepping out on his wife with a consenting “other woman.” His was an illegal and dehumanizing business transaction, one in which a man of great privilege purchased the sexual services of a woman of far more limited means.But instead of treating Ashley Alexandra Dupre—who has said she was abused and once homeless—as a victim, the media have turned her into a vixen. Why address the oppression that is prostitution when we can serve it up as a form of sexual self-expression (or as a savvy career move) instead?”

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I don’t usually put anything from my own blog in this Carnival, but I think this study of men who use prostituted women in Scotland should be read as widely as possible. “Nothing is going to deter me from masturbation, and prostitution is an extension of that” is a quote from one of the ‘punters’ interviewed for the study, which I chose to use as the title for this piece, as I think it is particularly telling of the prevailing attitudes of men to women in general, and especially women in prostitution.

“Like porn, prostitution bolsters men whilst destroying women. Prostitution is rape; it is the rape of women who are being paid to provide an apparently essential service, if these johns are to be believed. These same johns would have us believe that the existence of prostitution reduces the incidence of rape. However, this study shows that the greater the frequency with which men use prostituted women, the more likely they are to be sexually aggressive with other women. So, to put it bluntly, prostitution is paid rape of women, which causes unpaid rape of women.”

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Britta’s report from the Feminist Anti-Pornography Conference at Wheelock College was posted up by Heart at Women’s Space around a year ago. It is really nicely written, and shows a woman coming to realise how porn has effected her life.

“Being at the conference was an amazing experience and I learned so much. For starters, I realized porn *is* relevant to my life - the industry is much bigger, and more connected to mainstream media, than I had realized. Also, the conference helped me understand and re-frame events from my childhood and adolescence. There were boys and men who sexually abused me, and debased women in general, and I now see that their attitudes, thoughts, and actions towards women were heavily influenced by pornography.”

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Another good post from last year is Radical feminism, porn and prostitution posted by Jo22 at I Can’t Fly.

“Porn/prostitution is about as empowering for women as a chicken joining forces with humans to kill other chickens for human consumption (and maybe it’s own consumption) is empowering for the chicken. In the end, there’s nothing to stop the human eating that chicken. The chicken was never as empowered as it thought it was. In patriarchy, humans consume animals. In patriarchy, men consume women.”

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Continuing the theme of older writing that is still relevant today, 2007: Against Legalising Prostitution by Julie Bindel at the Guardian’s Comment is Free blog was written in response to the murders of 5 prostituted women in Ipswich in late 2006. I think it shows we are progressing, but also still have a long way to go.

“Let’s ensure that next year we begin to accept that, far from being the oldest profession, prostitution is the oldest oppression. Let 2007 be when we start to do something to help the women get out of prostitution, not, as those in favour of legalisation are proposing, encourage them to stay in.”

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Why I Hate Fun explores What sort of pressure causes different people to become sex workers?

“The notion of referring to what they do as “choice” is insulting. I do not know any pro-sex work women who actually are lobbying for the “right” of desperately poor mothers in horribly exploited countries to take a job that makes them want to kill themselves. I have on occasion encountered someone who felt the need to tell me that “nobody can make anybody do anything” and implied that these women did, in the end, have the option of suicide.”

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Shelley’s Hardcore Blog has an interview with former porn actress Sheena Lynn, exposing some of the truths of the porn industry.

“One night a man came into the club and offered me money to sleep with him and told me about his a career as a “filmmaker”. I told him there was no way I would do porn. He lied to me and told me it was just nude exotic modeling but he kept pushing me into more and more things. He talked me into taking pictures in sex acts with men. But he tricked me and filmed me instead and told me how hot I was and how good I looked having sex on film. He was Rico Suave. He talked me into making harder and harder videos even involving several male performers doing things I hadn’t even done in prostitution.

I had to turn everything off in order to do such painful sex acts. Whenever I felt I couldn’t handle the pain I told myself to shutup that this is just something I have to do to survive.”

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Also from Shelley’s Hardcore Blog, we have a moving post listing some drug related deaths in the US porn industry since 1980

“ON BEHALF OF EX PORN STARS AND PORN STARS WHO HAVE DIED TRAGICALLY WE ASK YOU TO PLEASE STOP VIEWING PORN AND CONTRIBUTING TO THE DESTRUCTION OF PRECIOUS HUMAN LIVES.”

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Whilst telling the horrifying story of The Silencing of Tracy K. Barker: Sexually Assaulted by State Department Official, Raped by Halliburton/KBR Supervisor in Iraq, Denied Justice, some of the means by which pornography is used as a weapon to intimidate and belittle women are revealed, at Women’s Space. Do make sure you read all of this post; the porn-abuse is just a small part of the extraordinary woman-hating behaviour Barker was subjected to.

“Barker was then transferred to Basra. When she arrived, a number of men were present and waiting for her. She was told by a manager the men were there to see how “good looking” she was. She shared an office with several men. The walls throughout the office and down the halls were completely covered with pornography, including photographs of male coworkers visiting brothels in Thailand, as they frequently did and photographs of animals copulating. Some of these photographs are attached as exhibits to documents in the lawsuit she filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, and I saw them. One of them depicted a supervisor in bed with the caption, “We try to get you into bed.”"

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Another excellent and thorough piece now, from Stanselen, entitled Challenging the Normalization of Pornography. The article gives many quotes from Scottish Women Against Porn, Nottingham Domestic Violence Forum, Truth About Rape, Spalding Women Against Pornography, Object and London Feminist Network. Especially brilliant are the observations that, “the sex education gap is being filled by pornography,” and “women are being sold submission as sexual liberation.”

“These women are often described as topless, but they are invariably naked or wearing just a thong with their arses in the air or pulling their pants down. The cover of FHM’s November issue featured Paris Hilton naked and bound in microphone lead. Her expression is so eerily lifeless and her body so airbrushed that she resembles a blow up doll more than a human being. Dehumanisation is, of course, the intention. This is pornography; the bondage pose is borrowed from hardcore ‘deviant’ porn, the most heavily demanded on the internet. And despite these publications’ representation of women as ‘normal’ and ‘respectable’, there are people, women and men, who refuse to accept it. There are people who refuse to accept the normalisation of porn.”

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How Prostitution Works is a really interesting article from the Lola Greene Baldwin Foundation (Prostitution Recovery)

“No one really wants to have sex with five, ten, or twenty strangers a day, every day. Besides the sheer numbers involved, some of those strangers are going to use a person in ways that are bizarre, painful, disgusting, and occasionally fatal. When people who have worked in prostitution call it repeated rape, they are not exaggerating or being “hysterical.” They are being legally precise. Rape is sexual intercourse, against the will of the victim, carried out by threat or force. In prostitution, the john performs the sex act with the unwilling victim, but subcontracts the intimidation and violence to another man, the pimp.”

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Europe reconsiders prostitution as sex trafficking booms is a piece from Womensphere, outlining some women trafficking practices in Africa, which often involve women who have previously been victims of trafficking participating in the trafficking of other women. Patriarchy works very hard to set women against each other.

“Unlike tactics used in eastern Europe, African women are often lured with marriage deals. The traffickers don’t belong to large mafia gangs, but are organized in smaller, inconspicuous networks.

“Often the criminals are women,” said Thoma. “These are the so-called ‘mesdames,’ most of whom used to be victims themselves.”

Voodoo rituals are often used to scare and psychologically intimidate the women, she added.”

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Kyle Payne of The Road Less Traveled blog has submitted UConn Student Speaks Out, about Melissa Bruen’s “Spring Weekend Nightmare.”

“The horrifying truth of the matter is that all men are capable of rape, and we live in a culture that teaches men to feel empowered through exploiting women’s bodies. And the notion that “good guys” are okay and it’s really the “bad guys” we ought to be concerned about not only creates an unrealistic picture of men’s violence, it also endangers women’s lives.”

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And finally, two pieces from Rebecca Mott. The first is Sometimes it’s So Damned Hard

“I know porn infected every gang-rape I was put through. Gang-rapes are created by porn.

I will never believe that the majority of men that raped me did not use porn on a regular basis.
I felt the porn as they manipulated my body. I felt the porn as they fucked me everywhere they could imagine.

I felt I was drowning in porn.”

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And the second is Ghosts Follow Me.

“In Norfolk I learnt not to sleep deeply.

I was shown the hard-core porn in Norfolk. It infected me with it’s poison, and I had nowhere to run to.

I haunted over and over by those images. I try so hard to remember sex is not about violence, those images pollute that. I can’t stop the dead eyes following me.

Porn poisoned my freedom to have a relaxed sexuality. It haunts me even when I just want to kiss.

Norfolk was a prison to me. And I so want it to be just a place of beauty.”

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That’s end of the Fifth edition of the Carnival Against Pornography and Prostitution – I hope you found something here to inspire you, and to encourage you in your fight against pornstitution. The sixth edition will be published here at the Burning Times on 28th May, and the deadline for submissions is the 26th May.

Here is the Carnival Homepage, where you can get ideas for the sorts of work I’m interested in receiving for the Carnival, and also a comprehensive list of anti-porn and prostitution links.

Please use the Submission Form to send in your work, or someone else’s you’ve been impressed by and think should be included, or you can email the link direct to me at burningtimes1645@yahoo.co.uk

Thanks everyone, and I’ll see you next time!

In sisterhood

Debs x

Irene Sendler dies, aged 98

Irene Sendler, the extraordinary woman who saved thousands of Jewish children from the death camps of Nazi Germany, survived torture at the hands of the Gestapo, and escaped a death sentence, has died at the age of 98.

“Last year, Miss Sendler was officially honoured as a national heroine by the Polish parliament, in a ceremony attended by some of those she had rescued.

Too frail to attend herself, she sent a letter read out by Elzbieta Ficowska, who was a six-month-old baby when she was spirited out the ghetto by Miss Sendler’s resistance group.
“Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth, and not a title to glory,” Miss Sendler said in the letter.

“Over a half-century has passed since the hell of the Holocaust, but its spectre still hangs over the world and doesn’t allow us to forget the tragedy.”

Miss Sendler was also honoured as a “righteous gentile” by the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Centre, Yad Vashem.

It described how between the years of 1940 and 1943 she established a network of friends and acquaintances to help some of the half million Jews forced into the Warsaw ghetto.
Using her status as a municipal welfare officer, she roamed the ghetto, ostensibly to combat contagious diseases.

While she was there however, she also handed out money, clothes and medicines.

Then, slipping on a Star of David armband, she formulated extraordinary schemes to spirit children to safety.

Some were carried out in bags, others were sent crawling through the network of sewers common to the ghetto and the rest of Warsaw.

Once successfully out, Ms Sendler farmed the children out to Warsaw families, orphanages or convents, where they were hidden.

For each success, Miss Sendler buried a jar containing the child’s name, to help families reunite after the war.

Some 400,000 she could not help died, however, either through disease in the ghetto or at the death camps where in total three million Polish Jews perished.”

Such an amazing and inspirational spirit should never be forgotten, but why is she so often referred to as “the female Schindler”, and where is her blockbuster Hollywood film? Of course, we know the answers, but let’s not embitter her memory with talk of sexual politics for the moment.

For more information about Irene Sendler see here and here.

Ethiopian Lawyer Nominated for Internation Women of Courage Award

Maeza Ashenafi “uses her legal skills to design a better life for Ethiopian women, a life that includes freedom from violence, equal rights, and access to education and political participation. She has built a durable foundation for these designs via laws incorporated into the Constitution of Ethiopia. These provisions protect the rights of women and children.[...]

“In 1986, Ashenafi became the only woman in her class to graduate from Addis Ababa University with a law degree. After completing her studies, she served as a high court judge in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city. In 1993, she served as a legal adviser to the Ethiopian Constitution Commission of Ethiopia’s transitional government. It was then that she led in drafting the country’s constitution to include protections for the rights of women and children.

In an effort to improve the socio-political status of women, Ashenafi founded in 1995 the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA), a nonprofit, nonpartisan voluntary association dedicated to the promotion of economic, educational, political, social and full legal rights for women. EWLA volunteers provide legal aid services to distressed women.”

In recognition of her efforts, Ashenafi has now been nominated for the International Women of Courage Award, which was founded last year by Us Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice top celebrate women who use their courage and leadership skills to futher women’s rights.

“In 2004, [Ashenafi] became the executive director of the InterAfrica Group (IAG). The IAG is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan regional organization dedicated to the advancement of humanitarian principles, peace and development across Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa via research, public education and advocacy.

Ashenafi returned to school in 2006 to earn a master’s degree and is currently working for the Economic Commission for Africa, a regional arm of the United Nations Economic and Social Council that promotes economic and social development, intraregional integration and international cooperation. Most recently, she has been engaged in organizing political debates.

Ashenafi has come a long way since her birth in the small Ethiopian town of Asossa near the border with Sudan. Her mother, one of eight children, never had the opportunity to receive a formal education. But now, thanks to Ashenafi, Ethiopian women can aspire to great things.”

Female-born Women-Only Spaces: Why they are important, and why they are our right

The Radical Feminist Spring Gathering I am organising will be a female-born women-only space. For reasons I find difficult to fathom, making it so that only female at birth women can attend seems to be quite a controversial decision, as various sections of society feel excluded, and may even say this decision arises from some sort of phobia. The level of threat perceived by some people in the notion of a few women getting together for the day to discuss feminism and politics seems totally out of proportion to the aim of the event. This post will attempt to set out the importance of female-born women-only spaces, and why such spaces are a right worth defending.

When I first had the idea for a women-only radical feminist meet-up back in March of this year, I naively thought that everyone would naturally understand that ‘women-only’ meant ‘female-born women only’. I was dismayed to discover this was not the case, and some people thought transwomen had a right to attend the meeting. And that is what this issue comes down to; rights. This post will consist to a large extent of quotes from other women, as this subject has been discussed for many years, and many women have laid down the nuts and bolts of the issues here far more coherently and lucidly than I can.

First of all, the importance and validity of women-only spaces. This is from the London Feminist Network site:

“We are a women-only group because we believe it is vital that women have safe and supportive spaces where we can work together politically to campaign for our rights.

We are the experts on our own lives and on what it is to be a woman, in all of our various identities, in a society where we do not have equal political representation, where we are disadvantaged and discriminated against simply because we are women. All too many of us know what it is to experience male violence, including rape, domestic violence, sexual abuse, pornography, prostitution, forced marriage, female genital mutilation and so-called ‘honour’ crimes.

As women we need to be at the forefront of the movement for women’s rights and therefore we need safe, collective spaces where we can organise, share our experiences, learn from each other and support one another.

Our work in women-only campaigns is not in exclusion of other types of political work and many of us are active in mixed groups for peace, against racism, anti-globalisation, lesbian and gay rights, environmental concerns, etc.

We recognise that men care about women’s rights too. As our brothers, lovers, fathers, friends and sons, they have a lot to gain from an equal society where women’s full participation is the norm. This is the type of society we are all working towards, and women-only Feminist campaigns have an important contribution to make in this broader struggle for a fairer world. We also know that most men respect women’s right to self-organisation and we welcome men’s support at our mixed fundraising, educational and other events.”

Men care about women’s rights too, we know this. We also know that many men will respect women’s right to self-organise. It is a right, not a privilege, and if men respect that, fine and dandy; if they don’t, well, we’ll do it anyway, because our self-organising does not rely on the approval of men. The approval of men is irrelevant to our self-organising, as much as the presence of men is obviously inappropriate at a women-only event.

Now to the trans issue. I found this post over at Women’s Space to be particularly astute.

“For one thing not all men who undergo srs do it because of ‘gender dysphoria.’ There are those who have extreme fetishistic desires to have sex as a woman but who do not describe themselves as having a ‘woman’s gender identity.’ Many straight men who undergo srs then go on to describe themselves as lesbian (because they still want to sleep with women) and there’s a minority among them who are absolutely rabid about forcing & involving themselves on lesbians & in lesbian groups. While they may see themselves as ‘lesbian’ for the most part many, many lesbians still experience them as men because they come with all their male privileges, expectations and attitudes towards women absolutely intact. They may have changed the penis between their legs but the one in their heads is still fully operational.”

That is so well expressed, I could never have put it any better, “They may have changed the penis between their legs but the one in their heads is still fully operational.” Some might argue, and I would be one of them, that it is the penis in their heads that does the most damage to women. The physical body is almost irrelevant, what bits you’ve got, what bits you haven’t; what counts are the attitudes, the self-absorption, the sense of ownership over another’s body. They are the things, among others, that distinguish the ‘male brain’ from the female, and they are the things which keep women in a position of subordination to men.

Radical feminists, including myself on several occasions, have often been called “transphobic”. It’s a pretty lame and meaningless insult that seems to be hurled by some people as soon as they hear that a woman is planning a women-only event. Here is Heart :

“Radical feminists are no more “transphobes” than we are “manhaters.” To allege that we are is to indulge in sexist, misogynist, anti-feminist propaganda. The herstoric position of radical feminism is that those who are born male into this world enjoy male privilege, for all of the years they live as males and as men. It is never “_phobic” for an oppressed people group — which females certainly are – to castigate its oppressors, even in harsh and mean-spirited terms, with name-calling, swearing, and hyperbole. It might be mean-spirited, we might be generalizing, we might be stereotyping, we might — and likely are — angry, but we aren’t “manhaters” because we denounce what men do or because we denounce male privilege, which again, all who are born male into the world have or have had. Male to female transsexuals/transgendered persons have enjoyed male privilege, for all of the time that they have moved and lived in the world as males or continue to. To call them out for their sexism whenever we see it, find it, hear of it, know of it, are targeted by it, are impacted and affected by it is not “transphobic.” It is feminism.”

I repeat, “To allege that we are [transphobic] is to indulge in sexist, misogynist, anti-feminist propaganda.” In other words, when someone refers to a radical feminist who has dared to propose and then (the cheek of it!) go ahead and organise a female-born women only event, as “transphobic”, they are doing nothing more than living out their pre-ordained male-identified path that the patriarchy has set for them. To refer to a woman who organises a female-born women-only event as “transphobic”, because that event naturally excludes transwomen, is short-sighted at best, and insulting and aggressive at worst. It is insulting and disrespectful to the woman herself, and to all the other women who will attend the event, and embrace that event as one of the extremely rare places in the world where one can be with other women alone, with no hint of maleness, no whiff of entitlement, no Male Approval Desire to hold us down, and no male self-obssession to distract us from our work.

Also from this post by Heart,

“Male-to-female transsexuality/transgender is really about men’s rights. It has nothing to do with feminism. As such, as feminists, just as we oppose men’s rights, in general, we oppose this manifestation of men’s rights as well.”

Which is another fantastic reason for excluding transwomen from a women-only event. Another aspect of events and organisations which are female at birth women only is the shared experience they engender and the celebration that can come from that. This is Lee Lakeman of Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter:

“Men dominate and disadvantage women, pushing us into “otherness.” Once so pushed down, we form groups of similarly disadvantaged, to defend ourselves. We assert our freedom of association. Surely it must be we who define the membership in those groups.

We say that for our purposes the experiences of girlhood and womanhood are the raw material of consciousness-raising.[...]

So far our case has become a positive tool for equality-seeking groups… Rape Relief, unlike other pressured groups, has not crumbled and it has not compromised its very nature: it is still here. Vancouver Rape Relief’s success thus far has enabled two other equality-seeking organizations to defend themselves from attacks to their group integrity. That is worth celebrating.” [emphasis mine]

Yes, it must be we who identify the membership in those groups, otherwise the entire meaning and purpose of the group is lost, which means there would be little point in continuing, little point in forming a group in the first place, little point in the group trying to achieve any of its aims. “Vancouver Rape Relief’s success thus far has enabled two other equality-seeking organizations to defend themselves from attacks to their group integrity.” Right this minute, I can’t think of anything worth celebrating more than that! Organisations have had the strength to maintain their group integrity, and many more will also be able to do that, I hope. This celebration is another aspect of female-born women only spaces that would be erased by the presence of men or transwomen. When we come together, on one of those very rare occasions when as women we get to come together, just us, we need to celebrate our lives, that we are here at all. And that, also, is a right, not a privilege.

Women’s right to female-born women only space has been protected by a Supreme Court of Canada ruling

“(VANCOUVER) On February 1, 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear an appeal from the decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal ruling about Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter rejecting a male-to-female transsexual from volunteer training to be a peer counselor of raped and battered women. Vancouver Rape Relief has now been successful at all levels of courts that have addressed this issue, bringing the claim of discrimination to an end. Ms Nixon brought a human rights complaint against the group in 1995. Both the BC Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal decisions found that Vancouver Rape Relief is entitled to form an organization of women who have a life experience of being treated as a girl into womanhood.”

It’s a shame it came to a Supreme Court to tell people what should be common sense, but it is definitely heartening to see this space protected. And all I am proposing is a get-together, once a year. I’m not setting up a vital, life-saving service such as Vancouver Rape Relief, I’m just getting a few women together to meet and discuss things that matter to us. Again, I have to say the perceived threat of this to some people seems extraordinary. Oh, I know it flies in the face of what patriarchy wants us to do, but that is sort of the point. Patriarchy wants women all in their separate homes, too busy with the minutiae of life to organise together, and achieve things together. So, we break out, once a year, and (gasp!) don’t let any men or any transwomen come to our gathering - it’s not exactly going to change the world is it, even though I wish it could.

You shouldn’t have to be providing a very important service, such as rape relief, to be “allowed” to organise together with other female-born women. It is not a matter for anybody else to worry about, and it is not something that we require permission from the male-centric society we live in to do. If you are threatened by it, that is your problem. If you don’t like it, likewise. If you feel excluded, ask yourself why. And if you can’t work out why, don’t come running to us for answers, we have work to do, and, at the risk of getting repetitive, not understanding why you are excluded is actually your problem, not ours.

On the subject of exclusion, here is a short extract from an article on the Questioning Transgender Politics site:

“Exclusion is exclusion. At least that’s what boycotters or those angered over the festival’s women-only policies argue. Maybe that’s true. And in that case, exclusion is not necessarily a bad thing. One of the major traps that people in privilege fall into is not realizing that sometimes they will have to be excluded from certain groups, conversations and spaces. Exclusion is sometimes necessary to prevent the erasure of the specificity of difference. We all know that gender is a social construction; however, gender constructs are very real in that people are oppressed through them.”[emphasis mine]

Which seems an appropriate point at which to question the privilege of transwomen who feel they should be allowed to attend female-born women only events. Women, throughout history, and worldwide today, are constantly “excluded from certain groups, conversations and spaces,” because they do not have the privilege which would allow them to assume they were invited. If you are not a female-born woman, but you assume you should be invited to a women-only event, you are coming from a place of privilege, and, rather than insisting that you be admitted, you should recognise and examine that privilege.

I’m going to let Heart’s words here be the final quote I shall use in this piece, just because she says it so well:

“Critiques of transgender/transsexuality are no more meant as attacks on individual transgender/transsexual persons than critiques of prostituting women are meant as attacks on prostitutes or critiques of pornography are meant as attacks on women in pornography or critiques of motherhood are meant as attacks on mothers or critiques of marriage as an institution are meant as critiques of married women or critiques of high heels are meant as critiques of those who wear them or critiques of lipstick are critiques of those who wear it or critiques of shaving are critiques of those who shave or critiques of boob jobs are critiques of those who have them, and on and on and on, infinity. Some ought to get over themselves and learn the difference between critiques, analysis, opinions, politics and them. I can critique the hell out of your politics and your theories and ideas and go to the mat for you, love the hell out of you, and be willing to lay down my life for you. This is what any mother knows. This is what any lover knows. If you want to know how to critique and analyze the hell out of something without making it personal, try unconditionally fucking loving somebody, would you? Then you’ll understand. Maybe unconditional love is just so goddamn rare right now, nobody knows what it is any more. And if people don’t learn, then there will not be any revolution, not any time soon.”

Love, unconditionally.

The Radical Feminist Spring Gathering is not for female-born women only out of any kind of fear or hatred or mistrust or disliking or victimisation or anything else of transwomen. As Heart says, the trans ‘issue’ is nothing to do with feminism, and hence it is nothing to do with this gathering. The event is for female-born women only out of a deep respect for the female-born women who attend. Out of respect for the women who signed up expecting a ‘women-only’ event. Out of the deepest respect for their lives, their herstories, their aches and their loves. It is an event for women, and I hope women will come together and share and hug and laugh and inspire one another. I hope we will go from the meeting feeling strong, and full of visions, and with a string of actions we can take when we get back to out normal lives, surrounded by men and male attitudes. The gathering is an oasis in the desert of the male-identified society we live in, many women’s (unless they are seperatists) only escape in the year, and as outlined above, to allow anyone who is, or has ever been, male into that environment would be counter-productive, and make the entire event a waste of time. I certainly am not wasting my time organising the event. I think the event is very important, and very necessary. And the fact that it is for female-born women only is central to the meaning and aims of the gathering.

Don’t Forget…

The deadline is tomorrow for submissions to the Fifth Carnival Against Pornography and Prostitution!  You can send your own work, or someone else’s that you’ve read and think should be included. 

Have a look at the Carnival Homepage, use the Submission Form to send stuff in, or email it to me at burningtimes1645@yahoo.co.uk

Thanks!

D x

Sign the Petition and lobby your MP - Get Lapdancing Establishments Reclassified!

(Cross posted at At the Root)

I have just received this from Object - 2 things we can all do to help their campaign to get lapdancing establishments reclassified.

Get more information about Object and their activities/how you can get involved here.

“Want to see the end of lap dancing clubs licensed as coffee shops? Take 2 minutes to do 2 things :

1. Petition the Prime MinisterPetition the PM onlineWe need 200 signatures to ‘receive a response’ from the PMWe have gathered over 50 already , one week into the petition’s launch@ http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/lapdancing

2. Lobby Your MPFind your MP’s name and email her/him directly @ http://www.theyworkforyou.com (nearly 50 MPs have already signed the EDM below, within 2 weeks of our campaign launch) Copy and paste the model letter below :

I am writing to you as my MP to ask you to sign EDM 1375 and support Roberta Blackman-Wood¹s Ten Minute Rule Bill calling for lap dancing clubs to be licensed as Sex Encounter Establishments.

A Sex Encounter Establishment is a venue which Œprovides performances for the purpose of sexual stimulation (without physical contact)¹ - this may include toplessness or nudity. It includes premises such as peep shows. A lap dancing club thus surely is a Sex Encounter Establishment.

However under the 2003 Licensing Act, lap dancing clubs are licensed like cafes ­ under a simple Premises License. This means local authorities can only limit location or numbers of clubs or control them in the same way they could a café. It means local people have very limited say in where clubs set up (eg in residential areas, near schools or women¹s shelters) and how they operate. It means the social effects of lap dancing ­ clearly more akin to a peep show or sex shop than a café ­ simply cannot be taken into consideration.

Yet only a simple amendment to the 2003 Licensing Act is required to allow lap dancing to be licensed, regulated and recognised for what it is. A single clause in the Act - which prevents lap dancing clubs from being licensed as Sex Encounter Establishments if they first obtain a Premises License (to provide music and sell alcohol) ­ needs to be removed.

It should be noted that this route to improve the licensing of lap dancing uses existing, proven legislation rather than requiring drafting of new legislation.

It should also be noted that recognising lap dancing clubs as Sex Encounter Establishments has no bearing on theatre with a clear narrative and genuine artistic aspiration which involves some nudity or titillation. This is already established by the fact that such theatre has long been differentiated from venues, such as peep shows, which clearly require a Sex Encounter Establishment License.

Re-categorising lap dancing is urgently needed given that research suggests that many lap dancing venues may go beyond even the definition of a Sex Encounter Establishment ­ with touching, intimate touching and other forms of sexual services, particularly in private rooms and booths. It is urgently needed given that venues can drastically change the character of an area and may even be linked to the creation of Œno go¹ zones for women. It is urgently needed given that their normalising is part of a wider culture of sexual objectification inextricably linked to the high levels of discrimination and abuse currently experienced by women.

The call to re-categorise lap dancing is spear-headed by the human rights group, OBJECT (www.object.org.uk), and involves a broad coalition of MPs, Peers, local authorities, academics, individuals and organisations.

Thank you for your time and I do look forward to hearing from you.”

You have 2 minutes….go!