feminism

Joss Whedon on the “Honor” Killing of Dua Khalil

Joss Whedon recently wrote a long piece about the “Honor” Killing of Dua Khalil, and asked that it be posted on Whedonesque, an unofficial fan site of his work. I haven’t written anything about this event, although I read about it on several blogs, because it’s the kind of occurrence that leaves me chilled with anguish and a feeling of helplessness, and deep, biting anger. I don’t know what to do with those feelings, so I try to get past them and move on. After reading what he wrote, I realize that’s the wrong response. What he wrote is pretty great – in short, it’s a plea to support equality now – and I’m completely lifting it and quoting it here, after the jump:

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Tactics and Techniques of the National Woman’s Party Suffrage Campaign

suffragetteSomething that caught my eye as I was wandering through the Library of Congress photographs of the women’s movement…

Tactics and Techniques of the National Woman’s Party Suffrage Campaign
Summary
Founded in 1913 as the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CU), the National Woman’s Party (NWP) was instrumental in raising public awareness of the women’s suffrage campaign. Using a variety of tactics, the party successfully pressured President Woodrow Wilson, members of Congress, and state legislators to support passage of a 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing women nationwide the right to vote. In so doing, the NWP established a legacy defending the exercise of free speech, free assembly, and the right to dissent.

The NWP effectively commanded the attention of politicians and the public through its aggressive agitation, relentless lobbying, clever publicity stunts, and creative examples of civil disobedience and nonviolent confrontation. Its tactics were versatile and imaginative, drawing inspiration from a variety of sources-including the British suffrage campaign, the American labor movement, and the temperance, antislavery, and early women’s rights campaigns in the United States.

Traditional lobbying and petitioning were a mainstay of NWP members, but these activities were supplemented by other more public actions-including parades, pageants, street speaking, and demonstrations. The party eventually realized that it needed to escalate its pressure and adopt even more aggressive tactics. Most important among these was picketing the White House over many months, leading to the arrest and imprisonment of many suffragists.

The willingness of NWP pickets to be arrested, their campaign for recognition as political prisoners rather than as criminals, and their acts of civil disobedience in jail shocked the nation and brought attention and support to their cause. Through constant agitation, the NWP effectively compelled President Wilson to support a federal woman suffrage amendment. Similar pressure on national and state legislators led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Alice Paul Picketing
Alice Paul Picketing

Alice Paul
Alice Paul
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The ERA is back! Awesome!

Alice Paul
Alice Paul
Holy crap, I was really surprised when I read this on Shakespeare’s Sister, and then read the WaPo article:

New Drive Afoot to Pass Equal Rights Amendment
Federal and state lawmakers have launched a new drive to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, reviving a feminist goal that faltered a quarter-century ago when the measure did not gain the approval of three-quarters of the state legislatures.

The amendment, which came three states short of enactment in 1982, has been introduced in five state legislatures since January. Yesterday, House and Senate Democrats reintroduced the measure under a new name — the Women’s Equality Amendment — and vowed to bring it to a vote in both chambers by the end of the session.

That just makes me so happy I could cry. Maybe we can finally honor Alice Paul the way we should.

2022-03-16 Update:
This didn’t go further in 2007, but several states made strides. The whole history is available on wikipedia and there is an advocacy organization working on getting this passed.
Continue ReadingThe ERA is back! Awesome!

The “Hoo Haa” Monologues

Irony, the phone is for you. A Florida theater was forced to change the name on their marquee after morons complained about the word “vagina” appearing in the title of the play “The Vagina Monologues” – which is, of course, a play about making women more comfortable talking about their bodies.
Personally, I wouldn’t have chosen hoohaa as the replacement — it should, of course, in the spirit of the play, be “Cunt.”

ATLANTIC BEACH, Fla. — A modified marquee in Atlantic Beach has been drawing some attention. “Hoohaa” replaced a word in the title of a play after a driver complained about finding the previous wording offensive.
“We got a complaint about this play The Vagina Monologues,” said Bryce Pfanenstiel, of the Atlantic Theater. The Hoohah Monologues is a replacement title for The Vagina Monologues — a well-known play about that part of the female body. “We decided we would just use child slang for it. That’s how we decided on Hoohah Monologues,” Pfanenstiel said. They did this after a driver who saw it complained to the theater, saying she was upset that her niece saw it.
“I’m on the phone and asked ‘What did you tell her?’ She’s like, ‘I’m offended I had to answer the question,'” Pfanenstiel said.

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Locked on the roof? Seriously?

I really loved the West Wing, most especially when Sorkin was writing for it, and I really do like Studio 60, for the most part. But lately the weird thing Danny’s doing to Jordan, the sort of creepy-stalkerish, pre-rapey, not really romantic, “refusal to take no for an answer” thing is really disturbing, especially since we know Sorkin’s setting this up to have them get together eventually. Note to Aaron – No really does mean no, dude. If you want me to start surveying the women around to to see if you’ve pulled this crap on them, I will. I’m not kidding. Cause you apparently think this kind of thing works in real life. But In real life it only works if you’re trying to get a restraining order.
And last night’s episode, where they get locked on the roof? Um, no. Like Jane Espenson calling for a moratorium on scenes where the character kicks a machine and it suddenly starts working, I’m making a new rule – no more locked rooftops. Really. Get a frackin’ key before you go there. Why would the door on the roof need to be locked anyway? Is Spider-man going to break in?
For all Aaron’s bitching that his audience just isn’t smart enough to get him, he certainly does insult the little intelligence we do have. But I guess I’m “just a blogger” so my voice shouldn’t be equal. After reading that Chicago Tribune piece I’m tempted not to watch the show ever again.

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How Islam Rationalizes Prostitution

A bizarre sexual practice sanctioned by Islam that has re-emerged in Iraq because we invaded, according the the Washington Post:

Temporary ‘Enjoyment Marriages’ In Vogue Again With Some Iraqis
BAGHDAD — Fatima Ali was a 24-year-old divorcee with no high school diploma and no job. Shawket al-Rubae was a 34-year-old Shiite sheik with a pregnant wife who, he said, could not have sex with him. If people are looking for filing for divorce in Virginia, then they can get some help from here.

Ali wanted someone to take care of her. Rubae wanted a companion. People can hire fathers rights lawyers from here, during or before a divorce.

They met one afternoon in May at the house he shares with his wife, in the room where he accepts visitors seeking his religious counsel. He had a proposal. Would Ali be his temporary wife? He would pay her 5,000 Iraqi dinars upfront — about $4 — in addition to her monthly expenses. About twice a week over the next eight months, he would summon her to a house he would rent.
The negotiations took an hour and ended with an unwritten agreement, the couple recalled. Thus began their “mutaa,” or enjoyment marriage, a temporary union believed by Shiite Muslims to be sanctioned by Islamic law. If you need help with divorce law, family law lawyers for hire can be checked out before things get out of hand.

The Shiite practice began 1,400 years ago, in what is now Iraq and other parts of the region, as a way to provide for war widows. Banned by President Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led government, it has regained popularity since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq brought the majority Shiites to power, said clerics, women’s rights activists and mutaa spouses.

“It’s a cover for prostitution,” said Um Akram, a women’s rights activist in Baghdad. “Some women, because they don’t want to be prostitutes, they think that this is legal because it’s got some kind of religious cover. But it is wrong, and they’re still prostitutes from the society’s point of view.” Um Akram, like the mutaa spouses interviewed, asked that only parts of her name be published.

Boy, anything can be rationalized if you just write it into your religion. We’re certainly improving things over there.

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A snippet of brilliance from Shakespeare’s Sister

From the comments on this post about feminism — this statement, that is one of those “yes, that’s what I feel too, if only the thought had come out fully formed, but it didn’t” for me.

It’s a little nuance thing, but makes a huge difference. If I post on a t-shirt that I find offensive, and someone says, “I don’t find it offensive,” I don’t take umbrage. It’s when someone says, “Oh, it’s a t-shirt; get over it” that I get pissy, because what they’re really saying is, “I don’t find it offensive and neither should you.”
That’s particularly problematic when it’s said by someone who wasn’t the target of the message. If you’re a man who isn’t offended by a “Pussy: The Other White Meat” t-shirt, well, duh–it wasn’t designed to offend you. Its very existence is predicated on the fact that (some) men will laugh.
The men who don’t laugh are: A) sympathetic to why women are offended; and/or B) offended by the portrayal of men as insensitive cads and the assumption that men will find such sexism amusing. In the latter case, that typifies why I constantly say that sexism is bad for men, too.

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Equality

“Equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity. Equality’s like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women. The misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who is confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now.” – Joss Whedon.

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“Marriage Contract” of Iowa Man

Via Smoking Gun: Check out what this guy Travis Frey from Iowa wrote up for his wife as a “marriage contract.” He’s under arrest currently for kidnapping his wife and holding her hostage in their home. I have to admit, I’ve never read anything like this. And I hope never to again.

FEBRUARY 17–This country, as you know, is filled with the deranged. And then there’s Travis Frey, a 33-year-old Iowa man who is facing charges that he tried to kidnap his own wife (not to mention a separate child pornography rap).

Frey, prosecutors contend, apparently is a rather demanding guy. In fact, he actually drew up a bizarre four-page marriage document–a ‘Contract of Wifely Expectations’–that sought to establish guidelines for his spouse in terms of hygiene, clothing, and sexual activities.

In return for fulfilling certain requirements, Frey (pictured left) offered ‘Good Behavior Days,’ or GBDs. Each GBD, Frey wrote, could be redeemed by his wife to ‘get out of doing the things’ he requested daily. A copy of the proposed contract, which Frey’s wife never signed and later provided to cops, can be found at left.

While we normally point out the highlights of most documents, there are so many in this demented, and very graphic, contract, we really can’t do it justice. So set aside ten minutes–and prepare to be repulsed.

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The Magdalene Sisters Documentary

I wrote a few months back about the Magdelene Laundries – In Mid-20th Century Ireland (until the last one closed in 1996), the Catholic Church ran commercial laundries, run by nuns, that were essentially prisons for wayward girls, who were deposited there by their families when they became pregnant, got in trouble or otherwise upset society.

The story of these prisons is now being told in a British documentary, Sex in a Cold Climate by Steven Humphries, and was then made into an award-winning (but denounced by the Catholic Church, big surprise) movie, The Magdalene Sisters by Peter Mullens, which is currently playing in the United States. I happened to run across an interesting article about the movie in Slate, and it occurred to me that, had I been born a few years earlier and in the wrong country, I would have been one of those girls.

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