sexism

I keep meaning to write an article about the election and my opinion on Sen. Clinton. I will get around to it, too. In the meantime, there's this:

Grave of Pregnant Marine Found

The North Carolina police found what they believe to be the body of a female marine that had gone missing in Deccember - shortly after reporting that she had been raped by a fellow Marine. Who is now, to the surprise of no one, the prime suspect for her murder.

What I found even more disgusting (and what, curiously, isn't discussed in the article) is that, after reporting the rape, Marines scratched up her car, called her names, and one even punched her in the face. Got that from the CNN news on TV just now.

I've been getting really into spoken word lately, So heres one of my new pieces. And I hope you enjoy it.

YR Gender Binary Roles:

YR gender binary roles, they control me like no other, just because I have a vagina doesn’t mean I should be a mother. It’s like the moment I stand up, and I shout my beliefs from the rooftops. YR first response isn’t listening to what I have to say. It’s putting me down, Figuring out some reason for you not to listen, for YR ears not to hear me, for YR heart not to feel me. But that isn’t going to happen anymore….Nah….. .Its time to open up, for YR heart to really feel me…Cause I know who I am. And as bell hooks said “Aint I a woman?!” and my response is for sure I am a WOMYN, That is with a Y instead of a E to the N....and I am my own beautiful human being. And this womyn is proud to be a womyn. But not proud to be put in a place where YR gender roles say I should stay. You say I should stay in the kitchen; I should cook, clean and take care of the kids. Well all I can say is fuck YR ways. I will choose to do what I want, and be who I want. Don’t stereotype me and throw me in the kitchen because I am a womyn. Let me be who I am and choose where I stay….Let my soul and creative being be whatever the energy wants me to be. YR ways, And YR thoughts need to be changed. Change YR mind and frame, and listen to me. Believe for once that it doesn’t matter that I have a vagina or breast…Believe…What matters is what I am saying, what you are saying, what this world is saying. The gender of one, the orientation or the race of one, has no matter in any thing we say, our speech or our words should be allowed to flow…. Flow through the pen as I write this down, free from hate or judgment that is just based on the author’s sex. Lets let everyone be free to be, who they choose to be…

No single news item has dominated the German media landscape over the past few months like the case of Marco W. The 17-year-old was detained in Turkey in April on the charge of statuatory rape. The charges had been brought force by the mother of the 13-year-old Britisn girl, Charlotte, who had apparently spent a night with Marco.

The story didn't make the news until around June, but then it hit with a vengeance. Though Marco was at that point charged with statuatory rape, it didn't come across that way on the news and in the papers. The reason for that is the relative ignorance of Germans regarding the concept of Age of Consent. Though we do have them, legally, few if any teens are aware of them and they are rarely enforced. Consequently, it soon became public opinion that Marco was charged with sexual abuse and attempted rape.

Out of interest, curiosity and just a plain old need for money, I briefly returned to modeling last week. From the 15th to the 23rd, I worked as a hostess for a company exhibiting at the IAA in Frankfurt (an automobile fair, sort of like the Auto Show in Detroit). My job description sounded fairly innocuous: Show up on time, wear the prescribed outfit (consisting of a short, black skirt, high-heeled boots and a shirt with the company logo) and be friendly to the customers at all times. The reality was that I spent 10 hours out of every day standing around on those obscenly high heels, smiling politely at everyone and observing the people walking past.

Today, as I was walking across the parking lot to the mall, a man who was cruising for a parking spot looked out of the window of his car and followed me with his eyes. I noticed and grinned at him. When the car had passed us I turned and said to my mother, "This is one of those things I sometimes miss when I'm in Germany. No one ever stares at me". She asked, "Why only sometimes?" and I told her, "There are times when it crossed the border from somewhat cute to downright offensive".

I don't know if it is really a cultural difference and if yes, what the reasons for it are, but while I turn heads almost everywhere I go when I am in Italy, hardly anyone gives me second glance in Germany. It was literally the first thing I noticed when we moved to Italy: we were standing in line to cross the Swiss-Italian border at Como-Chiasso and a car full of (male) Italian soccer fans in their 20s kept passing us. Every time they came level with us, they hooted and honked and winked at me. During the half hour we stood in that line, I went from feeling surprised and incredulous to feeling flattered to feeling mildly annoyed.

The other day I read an article about a beach in Italy, in Riccione, that is for women only. There were pictures of women sitting happily together, wearing skimpy bikinis and expensive sunglasses, sipping colourful drinks and reading glossy magazines. The tone of the article suggested that the women of that region had demanded a beach of their own, where they could spend time enjoying the sun away from the lustful gazes of males.

The article went on to list the services the beach offered: you can get massages and facials and manicures; you can even get your hair done for the night on the town to follow the day at the beach. All these services were provided by women, even the bar was run by women. No men allowed.

After that enthusiastic last paragraph of my previous post, I feel more than a little annoyed to report that the empowered feeling lasted less than 24 hours.

In an older book, Alice Schwarzer described her dream of a utopian society: one where a woman can walk by herself after dark and not shudder at every noise. I hear her on that one. We're very far away from that.

I visited friends on Saturday afternoon and took the train back at 10pm. By the time I was on my train, it was dark, and my compartment was nearly empty. I hoped it would stay that way, but was disappointed: with about 45 minutes left to go, two obviously drunk young men got on the train and sat down close to me. Their conversation was loud and though I tried to concentrate on my book, I couldn't help but listen.

I went to this protest on May 1st as many of you know that was the day their was protest nation wide for immigration rights. So I of course attended the local protest where I saw one of those guys with a sign in big letters saying “Abortionist, murderers, church gossipers and HOMOSEXUALS will go to hell, repent for your sins now” I laughed at first, I mean people like that are just ignorant and the fact that homosexuals had to be in huge letters just made me more amused.
I decided to sit near this man so I could listen to the people debate him and just hear what he was saying to them, Well sitting didn’t last long and finally my debating side got the best of me and a buddy and I joined in on the debate. It was going well for the first 30 minutes, I told him to mind his own uterus and then I laughed and said oh wait you don’t have one so I guess that means you just need to keep your mouth shut. (I was being very nice cant you tell?)

It's nothing new to me that people tend to not see a need for a continuation of a feminst movement. Just the other day I overheard a conversation between a few fellow students. A male exchange student complained about the content of the assigned reading, saying that he didn't need "[...]all of that feminist crap. It's so pointless, you know?". The three female students sitting at the table with him were eager to agree.

What I'm starting to see, though, is that people are drawing the logical conclusion of this faulty assumption. If feminism is finished, then there is no more reason to be politically correct and make an effort to promote equality. If the equality of males and females has been established and accepted as fact, then we can now go back to making jokes about gender stereotypes because, c'mon, it's all in good humour and you know we don't mean anything by it!

Burglary. Kidnapping. Embezzlement. Arson. These and other crimes. What do they all have in common?

When people come forward to report them, those reports are believed until evidence suggests otherwise.

So why is it that rape or sexual assault and charges related to domestic abuse are so suspected regardless of the geographic area where they are reported? What is it that they have in common?

Women are by far the victims and reporters of these crimes. The distrust of women, the malevolence of the female, the demonization of femininity are motifs through out the world and through out history. Are these the traditions that cause women around the globe to be undervalued and untrusted? Is it the fear of the status quo (read: old men in their respective cultures) that these allegations will lead to their hierarchical unseating?

Bad news comes in threes every time.

A fond farewell to our dear Molly Ivins, calling 'em out and putting 'em down every time.

I'm sure you've all heard about the young woman who survived a rape and then was jailed without being given her second dose of EC. Her rape took place in the middle of the afternoon at a popular and widely-regarded as dangerous street festival near Tampa, Florida. She is 21, pre-med, and had the forethought to go straight to police to make her report. Later after most of her assault treatment, police found out she had an open warrant for a juvenile charge. The investigation of her claim was abandoned, and the medical examiner at the jail where she was taken refused to allow her after-24-hours dose of EC. The examiner claimed it would be against her religion to do so.

In biology, we watched a video about Rosalind Franklin. I had never realized how much was wronged before- I had thought, "Oh, she wasn't considered for the Nobel Prize because she was dead, and posthumous nominations aren't allowed."

But it goes far beyond the Nobel Prize, or even any of the events after her death. She put up with sexism every day as a woman in the sciences, period. The male scientists dubbed her "Rosie" and "The Dark Lady." They belittled her based on her appearance rather than on her work, yet had the nerve to steal her data and findings to further their own studies.

That might seem biased, but James Watson freely admits to the nicknames, jokes about how supposedly unattractive she was, and even told the public that "Rosie, of course, did not directly give us her data," as stated in his book, The Double Helix. Maurice Wilkins, who has been said to be jealous of Franklin because she took over his lab at Kings College, gave some of her unpublished data to Watson and Crick.

I've been thinking about this issue for weeks, now, and debating about how to raise it here on AGA. Ultimately, I decided, that it was important enough to include, even if no one chooses to write about it, as an old-fashioned (dare I say that?) consciousness-raising.

Since I moved, I've noticed a phenomenon that my friends tell me is far more widespread than I'd realized. In public- bars or coffeeshops- an older man, say, in his 50s or 60s, will be hitting on a girl who's clearly underage, or just barely into her late teens/early 20s.

Today, a family friend got engaged. Before then, I had been at a craft store, where the wall was lined with "Modern Bride" and "Brides Today." This got me thinking about the patriarchal traditions at a wedding.

For example: In America, the father usually walks the daughter down the aisle and "gives her away" to the groom. To me, this seems to symbolize that the father, who owns the daughter, is presenting her to her new owner. Another tradition is that the bride's parents traditionally pay for the wedding. This is a lot like a dowry, in my opinion, as if she is a burden that they are paying to get rid of.

My friend and I were walking home from the grocery store, and as usual I was complaining about the male species, and (not as usual) she was beaming about her boyfriend. I dislike myself for my feelings toward adolescent boys, but for the most part, they have it coming. I was complaining about predictability and dominance, and how I have both, at the moment. The first I don't care for and the second I do, but only in a specific way. I want to assert myself, I want to grow to be understood, and to be understanding. This is not possible, however, when the other person gives up and lets you be dominant. There is not assertion necessary!