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Bugbrennan is a misogynist.
What do you call someone who thinks that extracting the real names, locations and workplaces of other women from a private group and posting them in a publically viewable place is a “feminist” act?
What do you call someone who responds to criticism with a flood of ad-hominem attacks on her critics’ personal attributes and identities, peppered with insults like “idiot” (wow, ableism, so revolutionary amirite)?
What do you call someone who thinks that “no” is a valid counterargument, not a childish response on par with a child having a tantrum to get her way?
What do you call someone who proclaims that all gender identities are anti-feminist, but has no answer as to why “butch” and “femme” are embraced and even guarded by many lesbian feminists?
What do you call someone who acts as if they speak for all women and refers to them/us as “females” in a very DEHUMANIZING way that reduces us to our bodies?
A person like that is a misogynist.
Abuse of other women is not feminism.
Ad-hominem attacks and tantrums are not feminist acts.
Ableist insults are not feminist.
So rip at me all you want, “Bug,” but you’re only proving how apt of a name that is for you in the end - you are a pest, but you will never bring me down.
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Five Years of Zanele Muholi's Photos of LGBT Lives in Africa Stolen From Her Apartment
During Artist Attack! month I wrote about the amazing South African photographer Zanele Muholi who uses her work as “visual activism.” On April 26th, Muholi arrived home to her apartment in Cape Town to learn that more than 20 hard drives with backup of her work from the years 2008-2012 had been stolen by a thief out her bathroom window on April 20th. According to her partner, Liesl Theron, the rest of her possessions were left untouched furthering the likelihood that this was a targeted attack.
The robbery has seen little press coverage, which has lead to further outrage as many believe the media blackout is due to the nature of Muholi’s work documenting queer South Africans and homosexuals in other African countries. Some of the only coverage I’ve seen of the story is byMelanie Nathan, a blogger and activist pictured at right with Muholi.
Muholi has created an IndieGoGo campaign in response:
I feel like a breathing zombie right now.
I don’t even know where to start. I’m wasted.
I’ve sent out a note to friends to tell them about the incident.The person/s got access to the flat via the toilet window, broke the burglar guard and got away with my cameras, lenses, memory cards and external hard drives, laptop, cellphones…
Whoever ransacked the place got away with more than 20 external hard drives with the most valuable content I’ve ever producedI am hoping that a few of my good friends are willing to go to pawn shops or to other places where this type of equipment is sold. I do not even want to know who the thief is.
I need the hard drives: ranging from toshiba, Western, Samsung at 320GB - 1TB each—these are the brands and sizes of hard drive I am looking for.
They would have gone into the pawn shop since 20 April. I am willing to pay a reward for the return of those ext. hard drives.
I certainly would pay more than the pawn shop can sell them for.Thanking you in advance.
Nathan is asking anyone interested in establishing a reward fund for the returned goods to contact her (nathan@privatecourts.com) directly.
ZINZI AND TOZAMA II MOWBRAY, CAPE TOWN, 2010. PHOTO BY: ZANELE MUHOLI. COURTESY OF MICHAEL STEVENSON GALLERY.
The IndieGoGo campaign has raised about $3,000 so far to replace Muholi’s stolen equipment, but obviously the years worth of original photography and video footage documenting queer black history in places such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Uganda is irreplaceable. The stolen work included photos taken at the funerals of lesbians killed in hate crimes, as well as works in progress and work that Muholi had planned to exhibit in July. The show will now have to be canceled. The loss of these often unrepresented voices whom Muholi has worked so hard to document and share with the world is disturbing enough, but the fact that few mainstream media outlets have deemed the story unworthy of covering means that even the loss of these women’s stories is going without notice.
Will any of the larger arts, human rights or media organizations step forward to provide coverage of this story? If there is any chance of recovering her work, time is of the essence. Considering the plethora of media sound bites promoting gay rights as the new human rights frontier in America following Obama’s pronouncement last week in support of gay marriage, it would be heartening if Muholi’s story was considered worth telling.
(via pansexualpride)
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I hate the fact that legally, cops can lie to you, but it’s illegal for you to lie to a cop.
Do you really think I’m going to trust someone who is legally encouraged to lie to me?
(via cage-veil-cunt)
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Letter to Nancy Keenan of NARAL on Young Feminists and the “Intensity Gap”
This is a letter that I wrote in response to Nancy Keenan of NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) and the comments she made about women “not caring about their own rights” and the supposed “intensity gap” between her generation and young women today. Feel free to reblog with attribution.
Dear Ms. Keenan,
This morning, I heard about your concern that young women don’t care enough about our rights. Let me say first that I have a great deal of respect for what older women have done to pave the way for me and my Millennial sisters. However, I think that your concern is misdirected and shortsighted when it comes to the difficulties that my sisters and I are facing when it comes to “stepping up” to carry on your work.
I first heard about your concerns through an article on Jezebel by Erin Gloria Ryan where she said the following: “Maybe there’s not an intensity gap between generations. Maybe young women pursue activism through different channels than their mothers and grandmothers did, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care. Maybe what we’re dealing with is a communication gap, a cooperation gap.”
As a 23-year-old white queer cis woman who has been involved in feminism for five years, I found your concern surprising. From where I sit, eminism is everywhere these days, and women my age on the front lines. They are volunteering at local Planned Parenthood clinics, forming women’s caucuses within Occupy movements, or clubs on college campuses. They have started collaborative blogs like Feministing or Shakesville with vibrant discussion communities built around them. Scarleteen, the most comprehensive source of sex education resources for teens online, is run by young female volunteers. Controversial as it is, Slutwalk is driven entirely by women in their twenties and thirties. The list could go on and on. It’s frustrating that despite the fact that these are only the white-woman-centered examples, even they still fly under the radar among older women, no matter how loud we shout!
Women of color have formed groups that combine feminism with intersecting issues of race and class, including AFI3RM, Incite! Women of Color Against Violence, and the Native Youth Sexual Health Network. Have you heard of them? Lesbians and queer women are making media and holding gatherings like NOLOSE, Queer People of Color Conference, Butch Voices, and Creating Change to name only a few. Trans women and women with disabilities are speaking out, writing books and fighting for access to dignified health care. Young women are everywhere. We are just doing things differently, and working to ensure that our feminism truly is for everybody.
If you are only looking for us among the managers, directors and board members at established nonprofits or companies, then I can understand why things might look bleak. There are not many of us there; our numbers in those positions are at an all-time low for the past ten to twenty years. If you are looking for brick-and-mortar feminist businesses, you would be correct to say that those are few and far between. Yet, have you ever considered that this might not be evidence of us not caring – it’s just a sign that we have taken feminism in a different direction?
I work at a domestic violence services agency, and aspire to become a case manager or some other form of macro social worker. I would love to work on women’s issues, so out of curiosity, I went to the NARAL website to see what opportunities might be available. Surely, since you claim to want or need more of us young women, there would be some way that I could help. Under the job and volunteer sections, it said “Sorry, there are no positions available at this time.” There was one internship listed, but from my experience as an intern or temp for several years, ‘internship’ is often code for unpaid work where bullying from coworkers is considered part of “paying your dues.” I’m not saying that NARAL internships are necessarily like that, but many young women my age signed up for mentorship and skill-building as interns, and what we got was quite the opposite.
I understand that the current economic climate is tough, and that women’s organizations, particularly those tied to abortion, are operating with reduced funding. However, I find it difficult to take your concerns about younger women’s lack of caring seriously when the only opportunities for us to “step up” and lead would require us to sacrifice time and money for little to nothing in return. Particularly for those of us facing additional oppressions beyond sexism – women of color, queer women, people with disabilities – but for young women in general, the choice between unpaid, underappreciated work and appearing ungrateful or dispassionate isn’t much of a REAL choice.
I would also encourage you, before you leave, to look at your entire organization from the lowest to the highest rank, and really see where the younger women are. Where is that energetic young media assistant who dreams of designing campaigns someday? Where is that woman of color who wants to make the fight for abortion rights more relevant and welcoming for her community? Where is the lesbian who is afraid that she will be ostracized for wanting to bring her health concerns to the table? I promise you that they are there waiting for someone to notice their talents and open the door. You may think that it’s their responsibility to demonstrate initiative and ask for leadership roles themselves, but you also know that 5000+ years of female socialization is hard to fight alone. We have to fight it together.
Right now, feminist activism is experiencing a return to grassroots and the methods of organization that you and your peers introduced us to in the 1970s – boycotts, marches, protests in the streets, consciousness raising, small-group discussion, independent media. Many of us recognize that the high-profile and/or paid opportunities to do feminist work just don’t exist right now, so we are inventing our own ways to address the same issues and bring in the ways that they intersect with other oppressions. There is no intensity gap. We care. There is a communication gap, because you are not seeing us, hearing us, providing viable ways for us to “step up” or supporting the work that we have created in different forms and venues.
Warmly,
Claire
email: claire@punktreedistro.com
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I think one of the most radical things we can do, as oppressed peoples, is reclaim our bodies as our own and reject those normative standards of beauty. We need to see our bodies, our lives, as beautiful. We need to not only be ok with our bodies but also celebrate them for their difference, their gorgeousness. We need to look in the mirror and be able to masturbate to our own image. We need to see our wild, natural hair and our thick thighs and see them as the epitome of splendor. We need to be able to dance in the street and shout that we are fucking hot!
Is this easy? Hell no! We need to deprogram decades and decades of messages that tells us that we are ugly, worthless and unworthy of love. This is hard work! And it is only done with the gentleness of a community of people that love and affirm us. Because otherwise, the constant batter of hatred that we face in everyday life will convince us that we are ugly, worthless and unworthy of love. We need to have the place to come home to to heal and recover and remember who we are.
"Post the Forty-Second or On Pretty Privilege (via biyuti)
This statement/affirmation just had me in tears at work. Truer words were never spoken. I need to heal, recover and remember who I am.
(via femmefatalist)
(via mickyalexandria)
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"I am driven by two main philosophies, know more about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you."
Neil deGrasse Tyson (via crookedindifference)
(via socialworky)
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If babies are so wonderful, why does the anti-choice movement use them as a form of punishment for “not closing your legs”?
why don’t they just up and admit that it’s about keeping us out of everything other than the home and the kitchen already? argh.
(Source: stfuhypocrisy)
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oh simon’s rock, how I love you.
i love how when our school ITS services sends out their legally-required piracy warning to the student body
they send out a p.s. telling us that we should “seriously investigate the stop online piracy act (SOPA)” and “not let it pass in congress without debate”.
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"You find this sort of thing a lot among the white, moneyed, conservative set: “If only blacks and Latinos would work harder, they’d be fine.”
I don’t think people who think like that are malicious, but I’d love to ask them how best to focus on your studies when all you can think about is the very real possibility that your mother is being assaulted in the bedroom where you’re supposed to find sanctuary at night. How best to prioritize learning to read rigorously over scheming to get home and be the man of the house in the stead of the father who left? How best to find joy in school with so much hate and bitterness poisoning the rest of your life?"Cord Jefferson’s rebuttal to Forbes: “If I Was A Poor Black Kid” (via timmyp10)
(Source: GOOD, via socialworky)
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By Your True Faces We Will Know You
I am visible –see this Indian face – yet I am invisible. I both blind them with my beak nose and am their blind spot. But I exist, we exist. They’d like to think I have melted in the pot. But I haven’t, we haven’t.
The dominant white culture is killing us slowly with its ignorance. By taking away…
(via tgstonebutch)
