Rape Culture – Page 2

¡La Vida es la Lucha! – Women in the Colombian Protests by Laura Montoya

*Trigger Warning – Reference and description of distressing violence against women at the hands of police*

Alison Melendez was 17 when she was sexually abused last week by a group of Colombian policemen. She was captured for allegedly being part of the protest groups in Popayán, a city in the south of my country Colombia, South America. The next day Alison was found dead. The official version states that she committed suicide. In the social networks, there is a video of four policemen carrying Alison to the detention center, each holding one of her extremities. One can hear Alison screaming, “Four were necessary to carry me? Four against one woman? Cowards!” The next day – before she was found dead – she posted on Instagram that she was not part of the protests that night. She was walking to a friend’s house when the police showed up. She started recording their actions, they saw her and went mad, so they captured her. When she resisted, four of them took her to the police station. In the post, Alison mentions how they groped her to the soul.” In the video, one can see how her pants came off while they were carrying her, and the policemen did not care. They just kept walking. The last time we see Alison in the video is inside the station. Then cameras were turned off.

*End Trigger Warning*

Alison is one of the 18 cases of sexual violence reported during the protests that started last April 28 in different cities of Colombia. In addition, there are 87 reports of violence and abusive behavior against women protesting. Alison’s case has been more visible, but it is easy to find several videos of police officers beating, harassing, and capturing women in the protests on social media. We have been witnessing this terrible violence full of indignation and impotence, despite protesting is our legitimate right as citizens.

Feminist Parenting About Sexuality Part 2 – pornography by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

As I said in Part 1 – this topic will be difficult to discuss. As I said, I promise I AM NOT SAYING ALL MEN ARE BAD. Please re-read Part 1 if this post causes you to feel defensive or protective toward males.

Unfortunately, we live in a deeply, horrifically misogynist culture. Our culture is so dystopian that it has normalized a mass butchery of violence against females. I can say these words, and most people either nod or look skeptical, but they don’t actually understand what I am talking about. People do not understand because they have so normalized horrific misogynist violence – they have been so brainwashed – that they cannot recognize brutal attacks against women, even when those attacks are right before their eyes… or happen to their own bodies.

Feminist Parenting About Sexuality – Hold on, because this is going to hurt by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

I have been asked numerous times by numerous people over the years to write about feminist issues, especially regarding teaching kids about consent, pornography, and healthy sexuality. The reason I have not tackled this project yet is that I know full well most people—even people who think they want to know what I have to say, who think they probably agree with me to a large degree—will find what I have to say too overwhelming, depressing, and painful to handle.

People have interesting perceptions of me, which shape their expectations of what I will say. I am generally cheerful and affirming to be around. I frequently advocate for justice issues by speaking with passion and blunt honesty in ways people find uncomfortable or comforting, depending on where they stand on that particular issue. People want to feel safe and affirmed by me personally, but they also want me to keep speaking out about justice—so long as I do not make them too uncomfortable.

Crow and the Pornographic Gaze by Sara Wright

Once she believed that
it was her fault
they came on to her,
that she owed them
something…
They owned her?
Secretly the
girl was pleased
because any kind of attention
was better than none,
or being so “different” –
stitched into an Indian skin.

She was a pretty shell,
an abandoned spiral
worn down by waves –
assaulted from within
by the pornographic gaze.
How she hated being young.

Continue reading “Crow and the Pornographic Gaze by Sara Wright”

All the Perils of this Night: a preview by Elizabeth Cunningham

When I wrote Murder at the Rummage Sale, my agent warned: “You have to have a sequel in mind!” I was supposed to write a second domestic cozy, same setting, same characters, different victim. But what came to mind was a memory. When I was a troubled teen visiting England, my uncle gave me a map and let me go sightseeing in London on my own. It was early winter 1968, the war in Vietnam was raging. I did not want to be an American; so I faked an accent, wore an eccentric hat, and called myself Eliza Doolittle. When a man picked me up, I did not know how to break out of character. I ended up drunk in his flat. I just managed to fight off rape. The man must have figured out that I didn’t add up and could land him in trouble. He took me back to my uncle’s office. The kernel for All the Perils of this Night is: what if he hadn’t? What if, like so many others, I had been trafficked? I couldn’t shake that “what if.” So I wrote the standalone sequel, no domestic cozy but what I would call a numinous thriller.

In July, in honor of Mary Magdalen’s feast day, I usually post about Maeve, my Celtic Mary Magdalen. This year Maeve urged me to select an excerpt from the new novel. In the scene below Anne, teenaged Katherine’s mother, is searching for her vanished daughter in London’s red light district. A prostitute agrees to speak with her if Anne will pay for her time. Continue reading “All the Perils of this Night: a preview by Elizabeth Cunningham”

Prose Poem – Rape is Robbery and We Want All of Our Stuff Back by Marie Cartier

We protect ourselves by saying it wasn’t that bad.

It only happened once, twice, when I was little, when I was older, when I was drunk, when I was the only one not drinking, when I was alone, when I was out with friends, when I was in the break room at work, when I was in the military, when I was unemployed, when I asked for a raise, when I was silent, when I…

When you can’t change it, you change yourself. Because it’s better than thinking you can’t change anything. It’s epidemic, people say. So it’s better than thinking it’s epidemic—the abuse of women.

So, you think, if I blame myself, maybe there’s hope.

That things will get better. Because I can change—me. Continue reading “Prose Poem – Rape is Robbery and We Want All of Our Stuff Back by Marie Cartier”

Greenness, Whiteness, Blackness, and the Nature of the World by Marisa Goudy

There’s magic in hiking alone, but as women, we’ve been taught to worry about venturing far on our own. In fact, we’ve been taught to worry about a lot more than that.

Though once I merely shrugged off the warnings and the horror stories, confident that I was wrapped in some sort of “not me” protective veil, I don’t usually take my safety for granted anymore. Maybe it’s because I’ve outgrown the belief that I’m invincible. Maybe it’s because I’m a mother and have a different understanding of the fragility of life and the female body. Maybe it’s because that murderer on the Appalachian Trail went by the nickname “Sovereign,” appropriating the powerful, beautiful word that is so essential to my life’s work.

This particular day, however, my desire to be outside was more compelling than my new bend toward caution. I called my husband to tell him just where I’d be, joking that he needed to know where to look for me if I didn’t pick up the girls from camp on time.

Continue reading “Greenness, Whiteness, Blackness, and the Nature of the World by Marisa Goudy”

Women’s Bodies and the Bible by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Trigger Alert: The bible on its face is quite violent to women.

Amidst the ugliness that is American politics in general and abortion politics specifically, I began to look for guidance to understand what is happening. I ended up pulling out two books that I read long ago. The first is Woe to the Women-The Bible Tells Me So by Annie Laurie Gaylor. Gaylor, in turn, was inspired by the work of Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her The Women’s Bible which was originally published in two parts (1895 and 1898).

I had forgotten how inspired I have been by both books. Together, they motivated me to begin looking at how the bible is a foundational paradigm of our culture. I started researching how translations have been altered from original meanings. I have already written a few blogs about how the representations of Eve have been changed to strip Her of the roots of Her original power. Take a look here and here.

These books reminded me of why such work is necessary. Here is what Stanton wrote in her introduction:

The Bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgement seat of Heaven, tried, convicted and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity, a period of suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man’s bounty for all her material wants . . .

Continue reading “Women’s Bodies and the Bible by Janet Maika’i Rudolph”

Seared by Vietnam by Carol P. Christ

Warning: This post discusses and includes images of the violence of war.

Recently I have been binge-watching the American comedy-drama series This Is Us. I am of the same generation as Jack and Rebecca, the parents of the triplets, but I didn’t think much about that connection during the first two seasons. The middle class father works-mother stays home family and the “father knows best” story line seemed like a throwback to the generation of my parents. Though everyone was supposed to have loved him, I didn’t like Jack, and I didn’t identify with Rebecca. The children’s lives seemed much more interesting to me, and I resented it when the flashbacks to the parents’ lives began to take over the script.

When the plot turned to Jack’s experiences in Vietnam, I fast-forwarded. “Been there, done that,” I said to myself, “I don’t need to see it again.” But eventually I realized I had to watch some of the scenes of the Vietnam War or I would not be able to follow the plot. Continue reading “Seared by Vietnam by Carol P. Christ”

Befriending our Dragons by Sara Wright

“We are an overflowing river.
We are a hurricane.
We are an earthquake.
We are a volcano, a tsunami, a forest fire…”

These words written by Judith Shaw speak to the underlying merging of woman’s anger with Earth’s natural disasters, suggesting to me that women use “natural” violence in order to create change.

Violence, not the values of compassion and cooperation.

Violence and power over are the primary tools that Patriarchy uses to control women and the Earth.

Engaging in more violence will not solve the problems we face.

So many women including me are struggling like never before to survive on the edge of a culture that continues to sanction the vicious ongoing rape of both women and the Earth.

I use the death of trees as a primary example of the latter. By logging trees by the billions or killing them in “controlled burns” we are literally destroying human and non – human species. Without trees/plants we lose the oxygen we need to breathe.

We need “woman – centered” women to say NO!!! WE WON’T TOLERATE LIVING IN A DEATH DESTROYING CULTURE PREDICATED ON RAPE OF WOMEN AND THE EARTH.

We need women who are willing support other women – Women who refuse to remain neutral – Women who don’t wait until their mothers, daughters, sisters, nieces, granddaughters are assaulted to take a stand with other women – Women who refuse to stand behind their men when those men continue to support individuals (males or male identified women – the latter are often “Father’s Daughters” in Jungian parlance) – Women who refuse to support a Patriarchal system that is destroying us all.

Continue reading “Befriending our Dragons by Sara Wright”