The Lobster Dance

Question: do you prefer reblogs or readers? I’ve been doing more reblogs lately, but I wonder if the old format of gender readers is better for this blog. What do you think?

Warning: some of today’s links deal with rape, rape apologists, and Steubenville.

Don’t forget, there’s always an item of good news at the end.

“Loving Wife and Mother”

From the birth announcement to the gravestone, women are defined by society in terms of our relationships to others. When can we be just human?

Robyn Swirling. “Dear POTUS: Why do I have to be someone’s daughter for you to think I deserve rights?” The 19th and I, via DailyKos. 13 Feb. 2013.

“My worth as a woman, and as a person, is not imbued by my relationship to someone else. I should not be granted rights and protections because I am somebody’s wife, mother, daughter, or sister. I deserve those rights and protections by virtue of my status as a person and as an American citizen. (NB: Immigrant women absolutely deserve those rights as well, but let’s save that for another post.).”

Tracy Clark-Fleury. “Stop calling us wives and moms.” Salon. 14 Feb. 2013.

“With his ‘wives, mothers, and daughters’ rhetoric, he was largely addressing Congress, which is predominantly male — and Republican men are especially in need of convincing on this. So some might argue that it’s simply a smart strategic move in service of the greater good, even if it’s alienating to women.”

“I Am Not Your Wife, Sister or Daughter. I Am A Person.” The Belle Jar. 18 March 2013.

“I have value because I am a person. Full stop. End of argument. This isn’t even a discussion that we should be having.”

Meredith Koerth-Baker. “Sloppy statistics: Do 50% of Americans really think married women should be legally obligated to change their names?” Boing Boing. 8 March 2013.

“But it still makes me angry when people misuse, misconstrue, and misrepresent information in order to manipulate me into feeling oppressed and outraged. It still pisses me off when all I have to do is spend 15 minutes reading in order to easily figure out that ‘those people’ are not actually out to get me. And I don’t really care whether it’s ‘my side’ or ‘their side’ doing it.”

Fighting Back in Calcutta

I found this treasure of a blog about documenting harassment/harassers through Make Me a Sammich.

Shreya Ila Anasuya. “They know what they do.” The Banjaran Manifesto. 2 March 2013.

“I was going to take the same bus today that I was harassed in, and the very thought of dealing with that all on my own was exhausting, so I took an ally with me: my camera. I wanted to turn the gaze back towards the people who were turning it towards me so intensely, to see what it would do.”

“They know what they do II.” 4 March 2013.

“This photo project is being done as a sort of strategy against the constant street sexual harassment that I face on the streets of Calcutta, and not as vengeance. It’s a return of the gaze, and I don’t know where it will take either me or the one who holds the gaze I am trying to subvert, challenge, bend.”

“A fantastic opportunity.” 12 March 2013.

“…I’d like to make the observation that you appear to have an extremely limited, heteronormative, heterosexist, hegemonic, violent idea of what it means to be a ‘man’. I don’t think you’ve been self-reflexive enough about what consent means in the sexual dynamics of a heterosexual situation.”

“Go Figure.” 15 March 2013.

“Just because none of the girl’s photos had a man brandishing the middle finger, it somehow completely delegitimises her experience of sexual harassment.”

Rape Culture 

Mia McKenzie. “On Rape, Cages, and the Steubenville Verdict.” Black Girl Dangerous. 17 March 2013.

“I also feel sorry that two 16-year-olds are capable of the things these boys have been found guilty of doing. That makes me deeply, deeply sad. ​That we have created a world in which, at just 16 years old, and even younger, boys can already hate girls this much. That they can already dehumanize and degrade them.”

Anonymous. “I Was Raped in Tahrir Square.” International Boulevard, via Jezebel. 19 March 2013.

Warning: while the other articles deal with the aftermath of rape in communities, this one is a first-hand account of gang rape. “When I finally made it to her place, the attackers still waited downstairs.”

Education

Seema Jilani. “The Forgotten Malala.” The New York Times. 12 March 2013.

“But we forgot the two others injured in the shooting, who are just as deserving of an education and no less heroic. One of them, Shazia Ramzan, plans to move with her family to the Punjab Province of Pakistan to escape the more volatile region of Swat. The other, Kainat Riaz, is wedged in no man’s land, with few options available to her given the economic stratum of her family. In November 2012, I visited Kainat at her house in Swat Valley.”

Good News

Jeff Yang. “Anatomy of a meme: The real story behind the Swedish mannequins that looked like “’real women.’” Quartz. 18 March 2013.

The good news? They’re real, just not from H&M.