rhiannonloveisnotarobot:

“Why the imbalance? Researchers say it’s due to a combination of factors. The majority of HIV-positive women in the country — more than 60% — are black; 17% are Latina. That means they’re often poorer, with less access to medical treatment at universities doing research, and are therefore less likely to be found when researchers are recruiting. It takes more effort to reach out to public clinics and community case workers to find women of color with HIV or AIDS; that effort can slow the start of a study. There also is a lingering mistrust of medical researchers in the black community, experts say, partly the legacy of exploitative experimentation on minorities. As a result, women and people of color have traditionally been underrepresented in clinical trials on numerous diseases and conditions.

Does it matter if women are included in HIV studies? Yes, because women metabolize or tolerate some drugs differently than men. Side effects, too, can vary depending on gender.”

Literally every advertisement I’ve seen online for AIDS research/study subjects has called for men. Literally. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Meanwhile black women are contracting it at a higher rate than any other demographic right now.

fromthemitten:

in feminist circles a man gets excommunicated for abusing women

in manarchist circles a man gets excommunicated for accusing another man of abusing women

.

A trans woman says that when she was arrested for a minor subway violation, NYPD officers belittled her, called her names, asked about her genitals — and kept her chained to a fence for 28 hours. Now she’s suing. And it turns out she’s far from alone.

In her lawsuit, Temmie Breslauer says she was arrested on January 12 in a subway station for illegally using her dad’s discount fare card (only seniors and people with disabilities can get these). She says the arresting officers — the suit names one, Officer Shah — laughed at her. When they took her to the station, a desk sergeant asked her “whether she had a penis or a vagina.” Breslauer explained that she was in transition. Then, instead of putting her with female inmates or in her own room, the department allegedly chose this course of action:

[S]he was fingerprinted, seated on a bench, then painfully chained to a fence wherein, for no apparent reason, her arm was lifted over her head and attached to the fence to make it appear that she was raising her hand in the classroom. She sat there in that position for 28 hours. (Read more)

desliz:

The responses to this doofus picture compel me to post about the concept of feminists hating men. Within those notes, there are a number of comments about how real feminists don’t hate men, or how everything on the left is okay except hating men, or how the picture is wrong because it doesn’t acknowledge that men can feminists too (and therefore, presumably, are not worthy of hate).

I often say that I hate men. It’s false in the sense that there are men I love and care for dearly. Men as a group, however, antagonize me, and I do hate a lot of what falls under masculinity and manhood. When women say they hate men, it is not a simple statement. Women hate men because they are abused by men, because they are raped by men, because they are marginalized by men, because they are murdered by men, because they must live their lives constantly being judged by men. Moreover, it is male-dominated society that teaches us that all of this can be avoided by becoming submissive to men, by being nice and quiet, by letting them into our spaces, by giving them access to our bodies, by making ourselves attractive, by giving due consideration to their opinions no matter what they are. It is exhausting and overwhelming. I do not blame any woman who reacts with hatred, because such reactions are often the product of years of exhaustion. No woman is rewarded for airing her hatred of men. She only invites more judgment upon herself.

Many women reject the idea of hating men as valid for two reasons; one, because the patriarchy itself tells us only ugly, hopeless dykes do that (and they have taught us that being an ugly dyke is a horrible thing), and two, because we fear it is like hatred of women. Consider, however, why men hate women. They hate women for not being sexually available. They hate women for not being attractive to them, or inaccessible to them if they are. They hate women for not dressing the way they would have them dress. They hate women for being smarter or more successful than them. They hate women who have authority over them. They hate women who challenge them. They hate women who have no intentions of yielding to them. They hate women who have no interest in men. They hate women for not handing over full control of their bodies and minds. They are conditioned to do this from childhood. It is socialized behavior that is regularly rewarded. It is not the product of suffering, and it is not comparable.

Finally, I would add that I do not believe men can be feminists. Men can most assuredly be loving and considerate supporters of women who challenge misogyny and sexism. However, allowing them to assume the title of feminist is dangerous. It places any woman who challenges or disagrees with them in the absurd position of looking anti-woman. It allows them to air their opinions side-by-side with women, and asserts that their opinions on sexism and the needs of women are just as valid. It also undermines a very important factor critical to the success of women; i.e., it deprives them of a space in which they can fumble and grow without the judgment of, or competition from, men. Men who truly understand sexism understand the need not to interfere, and recognize that they will never fully understand what it is to be the target of it. Feminist ends cannot be achieved if men are not willing to surrender space, power and their egos. A man who is truly acting out of love for women accepts this, and does not require a special title or recognition to maintain his commitment.

In short: stop having kneejerk reactions to women who openly and unreservedly air their anger about how they and the women they love have suffered at the hands of men, because what the hell do you think sexism is, when you get right down to it? Consider why your first reaction is one that works to appease and protect the feelings of men, rather than recognizing the validity and origin of some women’s emotions and reactions.

Thumbs up to all this (except I must add the specification of *cis-men, but that’s my opinion). At this point I’m convinced that cis-men who identify as feminists, without respecting any clear boundaries/limits/understanding of what they can and should contribute to feminism, serve to disorient the rest of us. I’m over accommodating them and patting them on the back for showing up— as many have done with Hugo Schwyzer, for example— and it’s just generally fucking my shit up right now.

keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus:

The name of Rep. Franks’ racist and misogynistic antichoice bill that is currently being discussed in House Judiciary Committee.

Follow @RCRChoice, @AmplifyTweets, and @RachelPerrone who are all live-tweeting the hearing.

Is this some kind of sick joke? This would be laughable if it weren’t so offensive.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately since I wrote this post, and it needs to be repeated. Patriarchy and white supremacy predate capitalism by a long shot. Let me break it down briefly.

For starters, where would women and queer folks be without the Bible? No, really. It’s amazing how much this hefty little book has managed to shape the politics of labor, reproduction and sexuality since the inception of the Church to this very day. Here’s a whole list of sexist and homophobic abominations as written in the Bible and enforced by the Church (which basically functioned as the State during the Middle Ages). These were later inscribed into normative Western “family values,” and eventually manipulated by capitalism. But all the witches burned and the homos shamed into seclusion can thank not just capitalism, but the cultural influence of the Bible, for Western constructs of gender and its violent limitations on women and queer people. (I would get into the influence of the Qur’an, Hindu texts or other Eastern religions, but I admit I’m not really qualified to do so.) 

And even before the Bible, male domination was rampant among the earliest societies; the expansion of any empire, whether Egyptian, Roman, Gothic, etc. relied not on capitalism but on basic brute force in order to grow. Property was gained and maintained not by trade but by the means of war. This was done through a process of colonizing other lands, raping and enslaving people. (This method also facilitated the expansion of Christianity.) Which leads to my next point discussing the ways racism preceded capitalism.

The phenomenon of white supremacy reaches far back into the Classical period with Plato’s Republic, in which Plato argues in favor of racial purity and the exclusion of brown people from the ruling class. And again, in the Bible, the story of the Curse of Canaan served to justify the enslavement of black people for millenia; people of color were regarded as “cursed” and “blackened” as a consequence of Canaan’s sin. (Not to mention that the development of Christianity and the Roman Empire also led to the persecution of Jewish people, who spent the Middle Ages as nomads and were later relegated to ghettos.) Thanks to these attitudes, people of color and women were regarded as property in the West.

Now, the notion of property, which also predates capitalism, did contribute to certain elements of racist and sexist oppression throughout the ages— for example, through slavery or prostitution. But racism or sexism is not exclusively carried out by rendering oppressed people as property; you can’t say that “racism is over” because slavery is “over” in the United States (PS, it’s not), or that “sexism is over” because women can work and own their own property. To say racism and sexism rely on capitalism is to say it’s only about property relations. But oppression goes beyond who owns what/who; yes, it can control who owns what, but it doesn’t start nor end there. To oppress is to basically deny someone of their autonomy, whether institutionally or personally, by exclusion or by prejudiced violence. Such oppression is perpetuated in supposed “anti-capitalist” spaces because it’s not exclusive to capitalism to begin with. White supremacy and patriarchy are social structures that are bolstered by capitalism, but can also function without it.

Even if we made it impossible for anyone to own property, the cultural residue of racism and sexism accumulated over time would still remain, unless we actively challenge the social norms that uphold these prejudices. Even if we abolished the proletariat/bourgeois distinction by abolishing property, it wouldn’t naturally solve for social distinctions like white/POC, male/not-male, etc; these are certainly class distinctions, but of a different kind, which require more than a focus on property. We need to challenge how people exercise authority, not only in economic but in social settings. So, given the rich history of how racism and sexism have pervaded societies, nobody should ever, ever make the argument that racism and sexism wouldn’t exist without capitalism. It’s a lazy and simplistic analysis of how oppression functions.

When your evil ex (white manarchist) is guarding the entrance to the occupation, and immediately upon your arrival starts yelling, “THERE IS AN EVENT GOING ON YOU CAN’T BE DISRUPTIVE.” And upon learning that I’m about to host the following event on privilege, he screams, “YOU CAN’T EXPECT RESPECT FROM SOMEONE YOU ARE DISRESPECTFUL TO!”

I strolled past him, because I’m not exactly a threat to anyone (except to his masculinity, of course). But my only verbal response was, “What. You mad?”

Friday night we played what was possibly the rowdiest show we’d played yet. A benefit for Occupy Wall Street, the show was not immune to attracting a handful of douchebags, one of whom were in the band that played before us. It was their first show. Their lead singer charmed everyone by cracking a rape joke on stage (to which a chorus of people in the audience said “That’s not funny”) and taking swigs from a bottle of Maker’s Mark in between verses and spitting on people.

(Trigger warnings ahead— slurs/harassment)

Read More

hoaxzine:

[img: black & white comic strip. first panel says during ga. a white guy is addressing the other “occupiers” stating “we don’t have time to talk about sexual harassment - that’s a personal issue. we need to talk about the real reason we are here and what we are going to do about the banks and corporations that are screwin us over!” male-bodied people in the crowd are cheering, female-bodied people look pissed. second panel is says after ga. there is a hippie drum circle and lots of ~~vibes~~]

*trigger warning - sexual harassment*

sexual harassment @ #occupy baltimore comic strip. based on actual events.

taken from ON THE RECENT #OCCUPATIONS: A COMMUNIQUE FROM THE WOMEN AND TRANS* CONSPIRACY FROM HELL (W.A.T.C.H.) zine.

“This occupation is inevitable, and yet we need to make it. There is no way for capital to continue its reign – this is clear. And yet, capital will not behead itself: we know that we need to struggle in some way if we are to overcome it. This statement is not a rejection of the occupation – as if it could be avoided, as if the present conditions were not so grave, as if we haven’t all had enough. But there are things that need to be said. We submit this critique in the deepest solidarity with those people of color, women, queer, and trans* folx that have endured this occupation while laboring on making it more livable from the inside.”

click here to download the rest of the zine!