In Lebanon (or at least, in Beirut) the joke is that it is equally likely to see a woman in a mini skirt as it is to see a woman in a hijab.
In Lebanon (or at least, in Beirut), European tourists feel at ease that the Lebanese still speak a post-colonial French, and let Beirut be called the Paris of the Middle East.
In Lebanon (or at least, in Beirut), tourists and Lebanese alike flock to the beaches and the nightclubs, openly drinking alcohol, smoking hookahs, and belly dancing to both popular western and Arabic music, creating a strange moment that many see as cultural influence, and many others see as cultural infiltration.
Still—despite the post-colonial familiarity and acceptability of Lebanese culture—Lebanese women remain in many ways decorative objects, openly ignored, slighted or discriminated against in legislation. In Lebanon, a woman cannot pass on her Lebanese nationality to her children. In Lebanon, a woman is not protected from domestic abuse—because the law does not recognize domestic abuse as a crime. In Lebanon, a woman is not protected from marital rape, because the law explicitly states that a married man is entitled to have his wife sexually whenever he pleases.
In Lebanon, if a man rapes an unmarried woman his crime is absolved so long as he proposes marriage to the victim. If she rejects his proposal, his prison sentence is shortened to six months.
If she is not a virgin—or her hymen happened to be previously broken [editor's note, see: My Corona: The Anatomy Formerly Known as the Hymen & the Myths That Surround It] through a myriad of non-sexual means—this is not even an option, because it her rape cannot be proven and counted as rape.
If she is a perfect victim—which in Lebanon means virginal, religious, and focused on either being or becoming the perfect wife and mother—and if that rape case is even reported, the media obsesses over the ethnic and religious identity of the victim and perpetrator, detracting from the universal, horrific nature of the crime itself. In one instance at the end of last year, a young woman named Myriam Achkar was tragically sexually assaulted and then murdered in a Lebanese suburb of Beirut, and though this was the story—an innocent woman was the unfortunate, undeserving victim of a violent, horrible crime, the story that was conveyed through Lebanese media was different. As Lebanese journalist and feminist collective organizer Nadine Moawad wrote at the time,
That’s what the story is: A young woman, 28, takes a 20-minute walk from her home in the suburbs and gets sexually attacked and murdered by a man. But that’s not the story we’re hearing everywhere. What we’re hearing is: A young, Christian, virgin woman, 28, takes a 20-minute walk from her home to a church to pray, and gets sexually attacked and murdered by a Syrian worker.
As rape is conflated with ethnic and religious identities, a rape myth that only the lower class, non-Lebanese Syrian can rape a virginal, Christian Lebanese woman as she is coming home from praying at the church is perpetuated. If he were a wealthy Christian Lebanese man, and she was at a nightclub in Beirut—or worse, his wife–the crime would still be rape, but the story would not be told.
Lebanese women (and men) are beginning to stand up. Last week, the feminist anti-violence collective Nasawiya organized a march through the streets of Beirut, demanding that marital rape and domestic violence be addressed, and that women receive greater protection in the law.
I care about this deeply—because not only am I female and an anti-rape and sexual violence activist, but I am Lebanese-American. I have never been to Lebanon—but I know what it is like to stand up to Islamophobic and Arabophobic people in both France and the United States, and tell them that I am Lebanese. I know that after an awkward moment, they typically tell me that being Lebanese is "good Arab" and "not really the Arab world" and then there is an awkward sentence about how much they love hummus or how Lebanese women are notoriously beautiful.
I want to tell them that there is no such thing as "Good Arab" and "Bad Arab," and just because Lebanon is characterized by colonial influence and has lower rates of visitor warnings, doesn’t mean that we/they do not have heinous political problems. I want to tell them that we/they can solve these problems with the just way, not the be all and end all, hideously flawed western way.
I know what it is like when a cab driver asks me where I am from, that he is curious because I am brown like him, and might share a common culture or common language. I know that no matter how much I would like to simply say, "San Francisco" and have my cultural loose ends tie themselves behind me, that with being questionably brown on American soil invites a series of questions on just how brown you happen to be.
I know that when I say, "Part of my mother’s family is Lebanese"—because that’s what seems to make the most sense—the next question is, "Your mother’s family, are they Christian?"
I know what it is like almost three full generations later to wonder why the hell this even matters—but I know for many Lebanese women (and men) it can matter very much. I know that three generations later, through the fault of my unquestionably ethnic spice rack, the family recipes that I grew up with as "normal" (but are far too characterized by generous helpings of lamb, bulghar wheat, parsley, and cinnamon to be considered "American"), big eyes, and skin just brown enough to beg the question, "what are you?" that I have a personal, selfish stake in these women’s lives, well-being and daily bull shit—because it is just an accident that I am not one of them.
As Lebanon moves forward, and Lebanese feminists like the members of Nasawiya begin to stand up, rejecting the decorative role that society has imposed upon them and demanding that anti-violence legislation is written and implemented into the legal and cultural code, I am following half a world away with baited breath and excitement, wishing that I could also close my computer and take to the streets of Beirut. I hope that I finally visit Lebanon soon—and that when I do, I don’t have to take to the streets because Lebanese women are protected by the law and treated as equals, not because of the colonial savior of western influence or infiltration, but because women everywhere, around the world—regardless of race, religious affiliation, or ethnicity—deserve their issues to be addressed and respected in the law.
In Lebanon, the women and men—regardless of ethnicity, class, and religious affiliation—are fighting for this right.
This piece was originally published at:http://www.annalekasmiller.com
From SlutWalk Manchester by Man Alive!On Monday, I talked about some of my own life, and the central, very personal, issue which kept me from attending one of the SlutWalks, an issue which also central to the walks themselves. On Tuesday, I brought up what appears to be a clear misrepresentation by the media, especially visually, of the walks. In both pieces, I expressed unwavering support for the walks.
While I did not agree with a good deal of it, I appreciated Rebecca Traister writing in the New York Times magazine last week.
But at a moment when questions of sex and power, blame and credibility, and gender and justice are so ubiquitous and so urgent, I have mostly felt irritation that stripping down to skivvies and calling ourselves sluts is passing for keen retort.
To object to these ugly characterizations is right and righteous. But to do so while dressed in what look like sexy stewardess Halloween costumes seems less like victory than capitulation (linguistic and sartorial) to what society already expects of its young women. Scantily clad marching seems weirdly blind to the race, class and body-image issues that usually (rightly) obsess young feminists and seems inhospitable to scads of women who, for various reasons, might not feel it logical or comfortable to express their revulsion at victim-blaming by donning bustiers. So while the mission of SlutWalks is crucial, the package is confusing and leaves young feminists open to the very kinds of attacks they are battling.
The above is, from everything I can gather, not a critique of the walks, but of the way the walks have been represented, more by the media than by the organizers or the majority of attendees of any of the walks.
In fact, when she wrote, "The most sophisticated attempts elicit just as much derision and, frankly, receive a fraction of the attention," I thought she was going to address that what she was criticizing was the media representation. But then she didn't, which confounded me. It seemed like she became part of the media misrepresentation herself, and took part in solidifying that simplification and misrepresentation. I also wondered if she was asking the organizers or attendees to somehow control the media, something none of us have the capacity to do, and even when we try, our efforts are most typically in vain. We can respond to the media -- and I do think more response is something missing from this picture, a part of the movement that could stand some work -- but that's all we can really do is respond. Activists are not responsible for how the media chooses to portray them, especially when the media chooses to misrepresent. Are we even remotely surprised that a movement in which young women are making themselves visible around issues of sex, violence and appearance has gotten the kind of coverage it has? If we are, how can we possibly still be surprised by reactions that are such literal representations of exactly what the protests are about?
She calls these efforts clumsy (but also necessary: "while clumsy stabs at righting sexual-power imbalances may be frustrating, they remain necessary.") I'm not so sure that they are. Rather, I'm not so sure that they are any more clumsy than a great deal of activism tends to be and has always been. By all means, I think more advance and in-depth organizing with this could have been helpful, especially strategies around dealing with the highly predictable media response. At the same time, sometimes effective activism is about seizing a moment -- a moment like Sanguinetti's comments -- and moving as fast as you can. Taking more time to organize can be of real use, but it can also happen that in doing so, you lose essential momentum. It's a call that is easy to err with either way.
Traister also says, “I found myself again wishing that the young women doing the difficult work of reappropriation were more nuanced in how they made their grabs at authority, that they were better at anticipating and deflecting the resulting pile-on. But I also wondered if, perhaps, this worry makes me the Toronto cop who thought women should protect themselves by not dressing like sluts.” I appreciate her honesty and her introspection.
I do think there have been some possible missteps around the walks, though I don't think that's about how some attendees of the walk have chosen to dress. And like Traister posed in that last quote, if we start thinking that way, I do think we have to take a good look in the mirror, whatever we're wearing, and look for how much of the harmful and patently wrong-headed messaging about dress, "asking for it" and sexuality we've internalized.
Samhita brought the issues around the media up in the Feministing response to and roundtable of Traister's piece, and I agree with what she said there in saying that "Activism and social change are not as much about what you meant to do, but instead what you do do, and what is Slutwalk doing in the mainstream media? Are people rethinking the role victim-blaming plays in sexual assault or are people too caught up in the term “slut?” I am not really sure." Media pushbacks are important to assure your message doesn't get lost or you don't wind up letting the media rewrite your aims. This is something Courtney also brought up in her commentary at Feministing.
Maya also voiced something in that roundtable I really appreciated about the Traister piece when she said, "to some extent, it’s inevitable that a grassroots protest movement, organized entirely on the local level, and filtered through a mainstream media that latches on to the word “slut” and images of half-naked young women, will struggle with message control. (My own limited experience with protest organizing definitely reminded me why I, like Traister, embrace a medium like writing that allows for so much more precision.) I just wish Traister had acknowledged that inherent challenge more, instead of reinforcing the idea that SlutWalk is just about women “stripping down to skivvies and calling ourselves sluts” – when she clearly knows that it’s about more than that and, at most protests, the hoodies probably outnumber the skivvies."
There's the issue of if a "dress code" should have been suggested or enforced. I can see how, when we're working around the issue that "slutty" dress has zip to do with sexual assault,some being playful with that can be seen as sending a mixed message, or as reinforcing the message being protested. I do personally think that someone presenting like this creates a more powerful statement about dress and victim-blaming than someone showing up without a sign, who isn't a survivor, wearing the kind of clothing most often considered (in the west, anyway, and even though it's often an error) to signal indiscriminate sexual availability.
Yet, at the same time, suggesting or enforcing a dress code for the walks stands counter to the core aims, like making clear there is NO way of dressing or not dressing which will "get you raped" or protect you from rape, but also no way of dressing or not dressing in which someone cannot or will not perceive you as sexually available. As well, it's clear that some attendees who came to the walks in whatever their "slutwear" was experienced something powerful in doing so. We always have to remember that when a movement is made up of people it is also attempting to serve, that what experience the activists have is no less important that what impact it has on those who are not directly participating.
Again, people are sexually assaulted wearing everything, anything, and nothing a person can possibly wear, and there is no one way of dressing which makes rape a victim's fault or responsibility because there is NO way of dressing which makes rape a victim's fault or responsibility. If any way of dressing really, truly protected us from violence, don't you think we'd all have tried dressing that way already? We only need one victim's story about how the way they was dressed didn't make any difference for them. We have millions of these stories: they are all of our stories.
As a feminist and activist who works primarily with sexuality but also with sexual violence, I also know how tremendously challenging it can be to try and address both of these things at once, and the ways that they intersect, especially in a world and a culture which often does not recognize that -- and sometimes even purposefully blurs and obscures -- consensual sex and sexual violence may not be things we can completely separate from one another, but they are also incredibly different, usually for the perpetrators of this violence, and most certainly for victims. We are going to stumble, because it is rocky terrain. The only way to avoid that completely is to not take steps at all, which is just not an option if we want any kind of change. Could folks organizing have asked for more help with that tricky balance? Probably. Would the walks and SlutWalk as a movement have benefitted from that? I have no idea.
As another maybe-critique, I've heard people voice a wish that there was, for all of the walks and their various self-produced web media as a whole, a lack of shared, stated core values and aims. I, too, can see how that could be valuable. At the same time, I wonder if the lack of that was what allowed this to become such an international movement, with communities, cities and cultures feeling a flexibility to adapt the walks to suit who they were and what they wanted and needed to address. Unilateral core aims, especially if done without an exceptionally diverse group of people taking part, could have created very real barriers to that, barriers which have long been problematic within feminism and other social justice movements.
I keep saying possible missteps, because the fact that myself, or Traister or any number of people think errors have been or are being made, or that all of this could be done better or worse doesn't mean we're right. We could be. We could also be wrong. It could be that despite it seeming like this thing or this other way of doing or saying that would have been the better move, that doing a given thing differently would have less impact.
I've been part of activist efforts and movements myself that fizzled, crashed or burned, even one or two that blew up in my face; actions or movements which were planned to death, actions or movements which were very spontaneous. I experience activism as being an awful lot like working in chemistry with elements and formulas which are experimental, untested or not entirely understood. You can try mixing things via various formulas we already have, and sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn't: it makes a huge mess of things or does nothing at all. Sometimes you try new formulas, with the same array of results. When we're working in and with activism, we are usually working with unstable, unpredictable elements.
Growing up in and around activism, being quite literally born out of it, watching it and taking part in it in various forms for four decades now, one thing I know is that effective activism tends to require a sort of perfect storm, an often, if not always, difficult to predict mix of timing and numbers and ideas and actions and people. Even the literal climate -- not just the social climate -- can matter sometimes, as trite as that can seem. My father engaged in one activist movement, the civil rights movement, that eventually seems to have had its perfect storm. Another he engaged in, dedicating years to, sacrificing liberties for, was the movement against the Vietnam War, which pretty much flopped per its ultimate goal. From all anyone can tell, the Vietnam war did not come to an end because of antiwar activist efforts. Even though both of these issues were vital and core human rights issues that highlighted incredible abuses of human rights, even though both involved the dedicated efforts of millions, they didn't have the same impacts, and I don't think that was just about the differences between the two movements and the two issues. I think a great deal of the why of those differences was outside the control of activists entirely.
Traister finished her piece with something I thought was intensely valuable:
Social progress is imperfect, full of half-truths and sloppy misrepresentations. After all, we celebrate the victories of a civil rights movement that was shot through with misogyny, and of a women’s movement riddled with racial, class and sexual resentments. Fighting for power is a complicated, messy process, especially for complicated, messy human beings. Often, the best we can hope for is that our efforts draw a spotlight. Which, I guess, is enough to make SlutWalkers of us all.
Something else I believe to be true about activism, and have found to be so during my life experiences with and around it, and my historical understanding of it more broadly, is that it is often very difficult to evaluate until we have considerable distance -- emotional distance, and the distance of time having passed -- away from it. Without that kind of space so we are better able to see the bigger picture of what progress (or not) or change (or not) and what kind of change it sparked, created or completed, making an earnestly accurate evaluation of an action or movement is precarious.
Frankly, I think those trying to evaluate the results of the walks are trying to do so much, much too soon and with far too small a scope.
Going back to the American Civil Rights Movement, some people will list that movement as being less than a decade long. We can also know that at any point during that movement, a given action was seen or felt as the central action, the apex at the time. But depending on your scope, what you know about, and what you're recognizing, the span of that movement could be more like 20 years, 50 years, a hundred years or longer. I tend to see it myself as spanning over 200 years. Before the March on Washington and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, for instance, there was the school desegregation movement, fifty years before that, the formation of the NAACP, before that the civil rights act of 1875, slave rebellions before that and on and on and on. That movement also was sparked and moved by more people than Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rosa Parks wasn't even the first to engage in her most historical action. In fact, she wasn't even the first to do it on that very bus line. There are so many activists who took part in actions that created the civil rights movement as a whole, people like Claudette Colvin, and like Octavius Catto, Gabriel Prosser, Bayard Rustin or Clara Luper, names few people know. There were people whose names we don't know or recognize and may never know. And for all we know, something one of those people did may have had more to do with the actions we recognize and the activists we know about. Trying to track a movement back isn't as easy or simple as it often seems, just like trying to evaluate what alchemy creates progress and change is not, and we are always going to see things differently depending on where we're at on the eventual (and often neverending) timeline.
This is some of what I mean when I talk about perfect activism storms and the scope of activism. When we're talking about activism around sexual violence towards women, already we have a timeline and a larger scope; we already have actions and activists and movements that reach back more then two centuries. Where do the Slutwalks fit on that timeline? What is their import in comparison to other activism around this issue? I don't think we can know that yet, nor do I think it's fair to ask that yet.
But I think that what we can know now, since people are asking, is that so far SlutWalk has been of value and has shown the potential to spark more than one kind of needed, important change.
Just a few relatively young feminists managed to spark numbers in-person, international activists movements largely made up of and led by young women all over the world. There have been alrgely attended walks, but there have also been so very many discussions, discussions and more discussions which have not been insular echo chambers, and where silences are being broken.
We have been able to hear, read and and be part of a real diversity of views, feelings and ideas. with a great deal of variance, many of which have involved a great deal of care, thought and positive intention. These discussions have generally been far more complex than simple yays or nays. These discussions are important, and often about more than either just sexual violence or just the right for women to be able to dress as they choose, and present or express their sexuality, when they do, as they choose without being held responsible for the violent actions of others when they do. From what I can gather, many of them have bounced off the issue of Slutwalks to get at some of the core issues that can create and have created divisions and exclusions in feminism and social justice that get in the way of women's rights and all human rights.
Even comments and discussions which illustrate some of the most ugly ignorance shows up exactly what people are trying to address with the walks is of value. It's tough to get a house clean if you can't see where all the dirt is, after all.
There are still discussions to be had here, issues that are part of the big picture to be addressed, like, for instance, that while blaming a victim -- or blaming someone who isn't even a victim yet -- based on her style of dress is largely, if not exclusively about women, male victims and survivors suffer a similar kind of victim-blaming around they way they present -- or are accused of not presenting -- their masculinity. There's the fact of the matter that, as with so many things, the world at large is often far more concerned, when it is at all, with the victimization of upper-middle-class white girls than with everyone (read: most people in the world) outside those groups. There's also the issue of how groups being presented as without their own sexuality, namely, those with disabilities, are often at the highest risk of, and have the highest rates of, sexual victimization, but also have the least freedom to engage in healthy, consensual and wanted sexual relationships and interactions. As someone who works primarily in human sexuality and hears about people's personal sex lives every day, there is also the incredibly sticky wicket of addressing how many people have sexual violence, exploitation, coercion and lack of real consent -- and not just women -- as part of their ongoing sexual relationships without the realization or recognition it is abuse and assault: who earnestly do not know and can often not even imagine, what healthy sexual relationships and interactions are like.
I think the walks and all of the discussion around them have given us a really great jolt in the arm to start having those conversations more and having them more widely.
The experiences attendees seem to be having vary, and it's clear the walks have offered a range of experiences. Survivors of assault have deeply connected with other survivors, or found a place where they felt able -- and for some of them, probably for the first time -- to feel safe in identifying as a survivor. Others have experienced a powerful and increased awareness about those of us who have survived sexual violence. I expect that someone in a hoodie and jeans walking next to someone in a bustier might have been able to see some common ground they did not before. For others still, the walks have provided an avenue to experience a lightening of the load so many of us have walked around with living in cultures which enable or excuse rape and which make many women feel afraid of expressing their own sexuality or enjoying their bodies. They have allowed women to deeply connect with other women, something which remains a huge challenge for many. I expect that for many participating in the walks, they brought them out to engage in in-person social justice activism for the very first time (something older feminists have been accusing younger feminists of having no interest in doing for a while now, mind you).
We know that how women dress or don't dress neither causes rape, nor can it protect against rape. We know that telling women to avoid dressing a certain way is not about protecting women, it's about controlling women or scaring women (and also about suggesting men need women to try to police or control their sexualities), something anyone who works in or around sexual violence or had education -- or should, like a police officer -- knows. We know that calling women names like "sluts" or otherwise arbitrarily applying perceptions of someone's sexual life or history to suggest someone's value as a person may be lesser is also about social control and can enable sexual violence. We know victims remain held responsible for their assaults far more often than perpetrators of those assaults. We know that calling these things out and stating and restating the truths they obscure is essential to reducing, and ideally, eradicating rape, and also crucial for an environment in which survivors of assault can heal and where people, whether they have been victimized by sexual violence or not, can truly see sexual violence for what it is and learn real ways to be safer.
All of these are aims of the walks; all of these aims are of great value and import, potential avenues to positive social change that could benefit everyone. And I do think that, so far, the walks have provided new inroads and outlets to cultivating these changes.
When thinking about how -- and if -- I was going to get involved with our local walk, I was reminded of Thomas Paine's words about revolutions, to "Lead, follow or get out of the way."
I knew I wasn't going to try to lead: this wasn't mine to lead, so far as I could tell. There were already leaders, and it's also seemed to me that much of Slutwalk as a whole is being led by younger people than myself, something I always want to support and never want to get in the way of. I wasn't going to follow. As I mentioned, there were a couple relatively minor issues with our local walk that kept me away, but also a far more core matter of my feeling that the most powerful way I could take part involved doing something I did not feel strong enough to do.
Which left me with the third option. To get out of the way. Which is what I chose to do and felt best about doing. But after I did that, I realized I wanted a bit of an addendum to that quote, because we can get out of the way without also being disengaged. We can be supportive from the sidelines, which is what I hope I have managed to do with these three pieces this week, and which is what I intend to do -- and hope others who don't feel they can or should earnestly lead or follow will do more of -- as this movement continues.
SlutWalk Manchester by Man Alive!This is part two of three entries about the Slutwalks this week. I wrote the first part of what I had to say about them yesterday here.
Today I want to briefly address the way that the walks have been visually represented in the media and by many bloggers writing about them, especially those who have been nonsupportive or critical.
In a word, they have frequently been represented by photographs which expressly stated or just implied they represent what people at the walks looked like as a whole, and have been anywhere from just incorrect to exceptionally dishonest in those assertions or implications. Because as far as I can tell, the images that keep getting picked aren't those which are most representative of the protests as a whole, but which are most representative of what a given person either found most provocative or most interesting. Or, which best represent their reasons for nonsupport or mockery.
This isn't unusual with images of protest at all.
As some of you know, I grew up with one parent who was an activist, and I've been in activism of many kinds literally since I was born. It's not at all uncommon that with any kind of activism, what gets featured in the media most, or shown up as representative often isn't anything close. It's typical for the aspects of activism which include the most spectacle to get the most eyes and airtime, something that has as much to do with the aspects of whatever that activism is and the people doing that that is intended to be spectacle as it does with what reporting on it features. I grew up with an incredibly peaceful and peacemaking activist who often had to counter ideas that we was some kind of mad bomber because of the way the media often chose to represent his activism in ways that were anything but representative.
Some of that absolutely can be about intentional, editorial choice, with good intent or ill intent (and those choices aren't always made by journalists themselves, especially if they are not self-publishing). Some of it may simply be careless. Some of it may be someone who just doesn't get it and literally only sees and is drawn to what makes their eyeballs go all googly. Some of it may be that an editor or journalist just picked the first photo they saw someone else use. As someone who is a photographer on top of the other hats I wear, I can also tell you that it is a lot more challenging and tricky to take a powerful, interesting photograph of someone who isn't creating the shot for you with their appearance than it is to take one of someone who is being very pared-down and introverted, who you yourself have to really look at and try and look into to portray in an interesting way. You have to work a good deal harder.
But the fact that the majority of pieces about the walks, especially when critical, contains an image that appears nonrepresentative of the walks on the whole isn't something I think it's sound to overlook, dismiss or excuse. I think it's important to bring an awareness to, especially if what you're reading about them is that they're just about an arseload of young women wanting to walk outside in their underpants or with "slut" written on their bodies just because they can. Because that does not appear to be the reality of the walks at all. Just like with reality TV, media-reality is its own reality, one often more reflective of itself than what it is reporting on.
But I think it's fair to say that with this particular activism, there's something that's beefing that common pattern up more than usual. After all, the spectacle here when it appears is mostly nekkid ladies. And we all know that nekkid ladies -- period, but especially when acting outside the script... -- is a big draw. Trying to smash down nekkid ladies who are working with being that way on their own terms, even if everyone isn't in the same place in that process, or their terms look like, well, everyone else's terms? That's an even bigger draw. That's freaking field day for sexist trolling, is what that is. It provides a golden opportunity for people to mock, poke fun at and easily get en masse support in diminishing or degrading those women, a sadly common pastime, especially on the internet (and not one only men participate in, either).
And the issues with this activism are issues which are some of the most challenging and threatening to many, many people in our world: sexual violence, victim-blaming, and the right of women to present themselves as they would like to and the freedom of women to be able to do so without repercussions which very few men, especially straight men, suffer unless they present in ways which are interpreted by others as being feminine.
People really have been cherry-picking these images, if you ask me, and I think it needs to be called out. I've been looking at collective imagery of all the walks (and thanks to folks who gave me some extra collections to look at).
Know what it looks like to me?
Nearly every protest I have ever been to in my life, that's what. The primary difference, as far as I can see, and the thing that identifies it as different than, say, an antiwar protest, is that the signs are about rape and about the right of women to feel free to.. without being blamed for violence done to them... or being assumed to be 'asking" for violence.
Seriously, most of what I see are people in jeans and t-shirts, with, less commonly, people in costume or something besides pretty standard I-need-to-be-comfy-walking-in-who-knows-what-kind-of-weather-all-day-protest-garb. And that is indicative of every protest I have ever attended, and I've attended quite a few.
The idea that Slutwalks are about thousands of women walking around in lingerie has a whole lot to do with misrepresentation of the walks. I think we can be sure some of that misrepresentation is unintentional and benign. I think we can be sure some of it is very intentional and anything but benign.
So, I gathered up a bunch of links of photos at SlutWalks around the world to share with you. They were the more common images I found, not images I cherry-picked which did not seem to be the more typical of the lot. Obviously, all I can do is ask for your trust on this. As a lifelong activist, someone who works in photography which has always aimed to be very real, and someone to whom these issues are critically important, as is the activism of young people, sound ethics around representations of all of those things are, and have always been, very important to me.
You can also look for yourself at the kind of pool I pulled these from. Here are all the photos on Flickr tagged with slutwalk, the biggest group I poked my nose into.
And yes, there are a couple nekkid or half-nekkid ladies (or not-ladies) in the mix, for they are part of the mix, even though they appear to be a minor part.
But here is what a Slutwalk really looks like, in London, Manchester, Melbourne, Edinburgh, Brisbane, Toronto, Amsterdam, Chicago, Seattle, Vancouver, Los Angeles and more:
Like this. Or this. And this. This. This, this and this. Like that, that, that and this. Like this, and this and this and this and this. Like this. And like that, too. Like this. Like that.
They also look like this, and like this, and like this. They also look like that, this, and that. And this, and this, and this.
The look like this, like this, and like this, this, this, this, this, this, and this and and this and this and this and this and this and this.
And like this.
Once more with feeling, if you've ever been to or paid any attention to other protests before? They look a whole big lot like most, if not all, of them, including the occasional person at them who is pushing spectacle -- a valid way to engage in protest, whatever the issue - and who more people probably took a picture of than the people that looked a lot more like everyone else.
Go figure.
I had a favorite line, in high school, when debating people on the subject of abortion. It was "Hey, that thing in your stomach's not gonna come out a toaster, right? It's a baby!"
Oh, I thought I was really, super clever with that one. Because I loved talking about the babies. I talked about the babies at the high school Young Republicans Club--not only was I the president, but also the founder. I talked about the babies at Club 412, the evangelical punk teen hang-out in Fort Worth I frequented with my friends. I talked about the babies in class. I cried about the babies while I strummed my guitar. I wrote songs about the babies, imagining myself as a broken, murderous whore who regretted her abortions.
I didn't have an opinion one way or the other on abortion until I started hanging out with right-wing punk rock kids in high school. Then, somebody -- probably one of the older teenage punk rock boys I would later fend off in the back of a car or behind the chapel at church camp -- handed me a pamphlet with an aborted fetus on the front. The pamphlet told me abortion causes breast cancer and how women who abort can never be redeemed in the eyes of God and will live with heartache and depression for the rest of their lives, a shell of the beautiful thing they could have been if they'd only carried to term. I was outraged. I couldn't believe women were killing members of my own generation -- my sisters and brothers! -- just because they couldn't keep their legs together.
Because while I said it was about the babies, it wasn't. It was about slut-shaming.
I absolutely loved slut-shaming. Because I was saving myself for marriage -- well, oral sex doesn't really count anyway, does it? -- I knew that I would always be right and virtuous and I would never be a murderer like those sluts. The issue couldn't possibly be up for real debate, to my mind: either you were a baby-killer slut, or you behaved like a proper Christian woman and only let him get to third base. Babies were simultaneously women's punishment for having premarital sex and beautiful gifts from Jesus Himself. That didn't seem like a contradiction in my mind. It was just another one of God's perfect mysteries.
After all, I was 16, 17, 18. I knew everything. And what I knew more than anything else was that anyone who got herself into the position of having an unwanted pregnancy was filthy in body and soul. And again, since I would absolutely never have premarital sex, I would absolutely never make the decision to murder my child. Because I was pure, and so were babies, and together, me and the babies and my perfect hymen, we were all going to be fine if we could just fight the ignorant sluts. So that's what I did. I talked and argued and cajoled and pontificated. I ministered to the heathen nerdgirl sluts in Telnet chats and online bulletin boards. I stood up for what I believed in, which was: If you do not believe like me, you deserve whatever brand of God's wrath comes your way.
But, you know, to hear me talk, it was all about the babies. The innocent children. The mass genocide! Perpetuated, of course, by millions of American women who I imagined happily scooping out their wombs with ladles before heading back out for another gang-bang. In private, my anti-choice friends and I would laugh and laugh (or, in some cases, LOL and LOL, if we were chatting online) about how stupid women were for having premarital sex. How evil they were for not being able to control themselves. How great I was for not having sex with my boyfriend. How loved and special I was in the eyes of God because I didn't let my boyfriend, you know, do it with me.
If I'd thought about it any, I might have realized that it takes two to create an unwanted pregnancy. But the conversation was never, ever about men or their behavior. It was only about women.
So, what happened? How did I come to be editing a lefty, pinko-assed feminist blog?
Well, I got off my religious high horse and on to a sex life I enjoyed and found fulfilling.
At college, I met a wonderful, sweet Jewish boy who fell in love with me and who I fell in love with right back. And he didn't have any hang-ups about sex, though he was also a virgin. And we did all of the things except for The Big Sex, and the more I grew to love him, the more I thought back on those people I knew back home who told me sex was awful and would break me. How could sex with this guy, this absolute sweetheart, break me? And so we had The Big Sex. And it was great and fun and loving, and we kept having all of The Big Sex, for about three weeks, until I realized it was about time for my period.
Suddenly: I was the dirty, filthy slut. I was the horny bitch. I was the callous murderer-in-training. What, did I think my womb was going to grow a toaster if we had a condom mishap?
Of course not. I didn't think babies were toasters and I didn't believe I was going to birth a toaster if I got pregnant, so how had I managed to belittle women for years with this condescending, patronizing line about a small kitchen appliance? I was frozen in a kind of moral limbo: I couldn't believe I found myself simultaneously relieved that I could access an abortion if I wanted to, and saddened and stressed out by the possibility of having to make that decision.
So I went right the heck out and got myself some hormonal birth control, is what I did.
I marched into my college women's health center -- oh, thank God they had one -- and I got my first pap smear and the Ortho-Evra patch and talked to the nurses about STD's and pregnancy and how to take care of my body. I had never had any of those conversations with my family or church or friends or teachers back home in Texas. I learned more in a two-hour visit to that college women's health center than I had in the 19 years leading up to it. And yet as a passionate anti-choicer, I had considered myself an expert on sex and reproductive health -- my own and everyone else's -- because of a few pamphlets and preachers.
Today, I see that nothing about my religious anti-choice views did anything to prevent abortion. They did a lot to shame myself and my friends, but nothing to prevent abortion. Today, I hear anti-choicers talk about the babies and the unborn and the American genocide, but what I really hear beneath all that is slut-shaming and fear of female sexuality. I hear that language clearly because I spoke it once, myself. It is a familiar language to me.
And I even have a little bemused sympathy for old men who try to pass anti-choice legislation. Because they really will not ever have to worry about abortion. And once, I thought I wouldn't, either. So I see where they're coming from. I see how blind to the experiences of others they are. Privilege does that to people. If they weren't so damned full of themselves, and so damned politically powerful, I might even find them funny.
What saddens me more than anything else are women who want to make abortion either so inaccessible as to render it impracticable, or who want to outlaw it altogether. Because I truly believe that most women, anti-choice or otherwise, who've experienced even a flicker of uncertainty about a pregnancy in this country since 1973 have been glad, in their hearts, to have a choice. I believe wanting to take that choice away from others is deeply about shame and punishment and judgment, and not about righteousness and love. I believe that because I rarely see those who want to outlaw abortion doing anything to combat its cause: unintended pregnancy, and I see them doing a lot to punish and shame women.
There is nothing "pro-life" about sonogram bills and denying Medicaid funding to (some!) rape victims or allowing doctors to opt out of giving pregnant women life-saving abortions. I know that what has kept me from having to make a decision about an unintended pregnancy is not the prospect of hearing a fetal heartbeat or having to go through a 24-hour wait period, but safe, easy and affordable access to contraception and good, honest medical information disseminated by doctors and medical professionals without religious agendas.
I was a girl growing up in Texas who was failed by abstinence-only education and soured by extreme religious dogma.
I don't want other girls to go through that, too. And so if you've gotten through this whole essay, consider donating to Planned Parenthood. Get on a NARAL mailing list. Fight HR3. Stand up against empty religious and political pandering and stand up for real solutions like affordable health care, comprehensive sex education and contraceptive access.
Originally published at Hay Ladies.
Earlier this week, in the context of another conversation, one of our users at Scarleteen mentioned that her feelings on abortion had changed to a negative when she learned that her mother's pregnancy had been unplanned, and that her mother considered abortion. She said that upset her, because she really liked existing. She did say she was still pro-choice, but her sentiment bothered me all the same. Some of why it bothered me was political, and also about the work that I do and have done. But in thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that the ways it bothered me most were intensely personal.
The truth is, I envy her. A lot. I envy she was able to have a discussion in which her mother made clear she had the right to choose and she chose to remain pregnant and parent her. She wasn't forced, she wasn't pressured, she didn't do what she did because it was the only thing she could do without risking her life, her health, being locked away or hidden or committing a crime. She chose. She had the freedom to choose. My mother did not.
It's a powerful thing, this choice, any choice; this freedom, any freedom.
I can't express how much I wish I was born under those circumstances myself. I wish I could've had that conversation with my own mother. I wish I had not grown up knowing my mother didn't have the right to choose, including a lack of access to contraception to choose to try and prevent becoming pregnant in the first place. I wish my own mother had not been denied the right and the freedom to make a choice so critical to her own life, first, and mine, secondarily. I wish that the relationship between my mother and I had not been, and will not always be, tainted and strained by the fact that I was effectively forced upon her and not a part of her life that she chose or, at the time, wanted. I can't express how much I wish the relationship between my mother and I had been elective for her.
I envy this user on my own behalf. I envy her clear, unquestioning knowledge that she was wanted and chosen; that her mother chose to be her mother. If she, unlike me, grew up without overhearing or knowing about conversations and comments family members had or made about her being a punishment, a consequence, a sin made only slightly less terrible by being born, then I envy her. If she, unlike me, grew up without seeing the ways not having that choice unraveled or stymied the lives of people she loved, or brought about pain, abuse or neglect in her own upbringing, I envy her.
Even more, I envy her mother on my mother's behalf. However difficult and painful so much of my relationship with my own mother has been, I love her ferociously. The fact that she was denied the right to such a massive choice hurts me tremendously, as would any basic human right denied to anyone I loved -- anyone at all -- would. That's not what I would want for my mother: for anyone's mother.
Now, I don't feel certain as this user does, and so many people seem to, that if my mother had the right to choose and had terminated that I'd not exist. I have no idea what the deal is with how and if any of us wind up here in life. I think it's possible that if I was meant to be on this earth, I'd be here no matter whose womb I came through, no matter who my biological mother was. But not only can I not know what would have happened in that respect, I find it irrelevant, because the fact of the matter is that my mother was a whole person before I was, one separate from me; my mother had a life before me and a life she wanted before and without me, and my mother's life and her dreams mattered then, matter now, and I know for a fact it would have been radically different for her, and better for her (and me), if she had had the freedom and right to choose for herself. I know her life would have been radically different even if she hadn't have had a choice to make but simply grew up with the knowledge and confidence that she had those choices and freedoms. I know because I talk to young women like she was then who do have those choices, but also to those who don't. They are markedly different, in ways impossible to ignore.
As the years go by, I increasingly realize how like so many young women in or just out of their teens my mother was. It ever staggers and upsets me to realize I'm counseling someone who is the age she was, who knows as little as she did, who is as overwhelmed and unsupported as she was, who still doesn't have the agency she also didn't have. I can't possibly think of myself first before her and young women like her. To do that, I'd have to stop listening, stop feeling, stop understanding. To do that, I'd have to ignore, dehumanize or objectify the person sitting right in front of me or writing to me, and focus instead on someone who may or may not ever exist, even if a given person chooses to remain pregnant. To do that, I'd have to deny the privilege I had and have that my mother didn't and some young women still don't. I also often talk to a young woman who, instead, is in a place my mother could have been if she'd had information, choice and agency she did not. While listening to and talking with the young woman my mother could have been is often far more pleasant and hopeful, in another respect, it is painful and bitter, because this is what I would have wanted for her. This is what anyone who loved her and respected her and who cared about the quality of anyone's life, especially hers, should have wanted for her. But didn't.
If it is so that my own agency must be at the expense of someone else, especially the person who was already here and whole before I was even an idea, let alone a person, the person had to labor to bring me into this world, no less, I have a hard time seeing that as any kind of gift at all, nor as any kind of agency for anyone, including me. If I could turn back the clock and give my mother the choices she should have had, and she had chosen to terminate and that did mean she got to have the life she wanted and I didn't get this one at all, I'm good with that. Better that than the alternative. I love my mother, and all women, too much, and know too much about the life of my mother, and the lives of all women, to enjoy the conceit that is thinking my life and my agency are more valuable or meaningful than hers or that of anyone else.
It's a powerful thing, this choice, any choice; this freedom, any freedom.
The older I get, the more I find reproductive rights, justice and choice run a million red, pulsing threads through my life and my heart. I have cared deeply about the right to choose for as far back as I can remember, and with every year that passes -- even as it becomes highly unlikely given my age that I will ever make another major reproductive choice myself -- I care more and more deeply. Even as reproductive choice becomes less about me personally and more about others, it impacts me and influences me deeply, and perhaps even more so because of that fact.
I cared from the get-go because of the circumstances of my own life and family. I cared early because of my own reproductive and sexual choices, including those I was denied myself, and those I witnessed around me, and because when I got to the point in my life where I had those choices to make, I was acutely aware I had access to a level of choice other women had not or did not. I cared early on because I cared about human rights; because I cared about people having power and agency in and for their own lives. Then I cared more because of working as a teacher, and seeing the diversity of the lives of children and young people; how much of an impact parents have, both for good and for ill. Then I cared some more because of working in sex education, sexual health and with young people just starting to try and navigate all of these choices, as well as all the other choices in their lives; I cared even more working with young people who didn't have all the same choices others do. Then I cared even more when working in abortion directly. I keep caring for all of those reasons, and my care continues to amplify, deepen, diversify and cement. So does my sadness and my anger; so does my awareness of all of what having real choices can mean and what not having them can mean, too.
When I was working at the clinic, sometimes we had to tell women they didn't have choices they wanted to have; they should have had. We had to tell them it took them too long to save up the money or get the support to terminate, that they were now past the time when they could. We had to tell them there was nothing we could do to help them access more money to pay for an abortion procedure, and tell them that knowing a woman without enough money to pay for an abortion doesn't have close to the resources she needs to raise a child, even if she wanted to. Sometimes providers have to tell them that even though they have more children than they can care for, because of money, timing or some other restriction that unless they can arrange an adoption, they're going to have to try and parent one more, even if they know they don't want to and can't serve a child well. Sometimes providers have to tell them that without someone else's permission, because of their age or other reduced status in the world, they are not allowed to make their own choices.
No one ever wanted to be the bearer of this news, including me. Sitting down with someone and opening a conversation by telling them they do not have a choice they should have is one of the worst things in my life I have ever had to do. Watching someone who feels trapped in something no one should ever be trapped in is soul-crushing. I had to once give that news to a 15-year-old girl who had come all the way from Canada. She had to go the long way back home knowing that once she got there, she was going to get kicked out with nowhere to go and I couldn't stop crying or picturing her so alone in the world for my two hour commute on the bus home. Even though it wasn't my fault she was in that spot, and there was nothing I could have done to change things for her, I cried all the more because I had to be part of denying someone something I would never, ever want to deny them.
At Scarleteen, particularly when talking to young women who live outside nations or areas where they have the right to choose or have full freedom in choosing, we've had to tell some women they don't have the legal right to make a choice, or counsel young women feeling suicidal because of a possible pregnancy because they already know that if they become pregnant, it will have to mean they remain pregnant which they do not want to be. We've had to talk young people out of trying to terminate their own pregnancies, talk them out of using things so many people don't realize some people even still think about or try: coat hangers, coke bottles, pencils, knitting needles, drug overdoses, getting in car accidents on purpose.
On the flip side, one of my favorite parts of the work I do has been providing all-options counseling and support for all reproductive choices. The days that I get to do that work, no matter how difficult it can be, how challenging for myself and the women involved, are always some of my best days. To be able to start a conversation by telling a person, especially a young person, that she has choices is powerful for both of us. Being able to tell a woman that she has these vital choices and freedoms, that you support any of them she feels is most right for her, and that you will do your best to provide support for those choices now and whenever else she should need it is one of the most wonderful statements to be able to make to someone else. Sadly, the reaction one often gets to a statement like that also so often makes it clear how rare it still is, how unusual an experience it is for many women to find themselves in the position of being unilaterally supported, particularly around their bodies and reproduction. It can also tell us how tenuous those rights still feel for so many women, mostly likely because they are.
These conversations, and these choices in life, period, no matter what choice a woman makes, often make way for many other powerful lightbulbs and choices. When you work with women around reproduction and have unconditionally supportive conversations at these crucial times you have to ask and talk about the whole of their lives, and the context of their lives is part of all of this. So you're often part of decisions like leaving unhealthy or abusive relationships, choosing to put more energy into pursuing life goals and dreams, changing family or community in a way to be surrounded by more people who are supportive, changing how any one woman sees and understands all other women, sometimes even the women she has the hardest time understanding or sympathizing with. And if and when someone is freely able to choose to be someone's parent, fully able to choose, you see a person going into that endeavor in a radically different way than someone who does not have a choice, and you know their life and the life of any of their children will always be all the better for it.
Without choice and freedom, we don't get to own and truly claim our lives; neither do our mothers, sisters, daughters, friends. Without them, we can't say we made a choice at all, nor can we, or others, get to take real pride in or responsibility for our choices. There's a critical difference between making the best of your circumstances when you didn't have a choice and making the circumstances yourself that are best for yourself. Both are laudable, and yet we can only take real ownership of the latter. I am proud of my mother for all that she was able to do and has done given her circumstances, and I know she is proud of herself, but I hate that my mother was denied the privilege to be as proud of herself as she could be had she been allowed to truly own and make her own choices; I hate that I have that power while my mother did not.
Without choice and freedom -- and without having to engage in any fantasy or speculation about whether I'd be here or not -- I know my life would not be like my life at all. It would have likely been more like some of the worst parts of my mother's life. With them, her life could have been a lot more like the very best parts of mine. People chose to deny her that freedom; people can and do still choose to deny or try to deny it to some people still. People chose to allow me that freedom and to allow and protect it for many of you; people can and do still choose to do their -- hopefully our -- damnedest to allow it to and protect it for all people.
It's a powerful thing, this choice, any choice; this freedom, any freedom.
Recently, I've been talking about men and feminism a fair bit, and not just in what I write, but in other places online and in real life. This is pretty normal for me, but what's a bit interesting is that a lot of these conversations have been around the relationship of men to feminism and in particular, what role men can play in supporting feminism and women in general.
A lot of this discussion has been about names; and in particular what you call a male identified person who supports and actively promotes feminism. 'Feminist' is the obvious answer, but this can be problematic because the word is SO strongly associated with women, and some feel that there personal, experiential aspects of feminism, along with male privilege (the numerous benefits and opportunities that biological men often enjoy solely on the basis of their sex - better average wages, less harassment, etc) think that is important for the term 'Feminist' to remain exclusive to female identifying people. Other people think that males SHOULD label themselves feminists, to better challenge the notion feminism is a concern only of women, and actively engage men in struggles for gender rights and equality. Just like UK comedian Bill Bailey is doing here.
Some other terms that are used to describe men who identify with feminism are 'Allies,' a term which is used by people in many contexts (not just men) who advocate and support struggles around a particular issue, for example rights for sex workers, but, for whatever reason, do not identify with that community themselves. 'Male feminist' and 'pro-feminist' are also used, which include the term feminist, along with a caveat that creates a distinction with female feminists.
This stuff with names and terms can seem kind of beside the point, but it all means quite a bit when it comes to how we think about gender, feminism, etc and this theory naturally informs personal politics and action in these areas. It's a personal choice though, and I don't think any of the above labels are more right or wrong than the others, it's about what you believe and what you feel comfortable with. Regardless of what you call it, there are many ways the actions and behaviours of male people can support women and promote gender equality. I'm only going to outline a few broad (and I think key) points, I'd be really interested to get your input and perspectives and experiences, (male and female) so please be vocal in the comments section.
As a male, it's important to understand and realise that you have certain advantages and privileges purely on the basis of your biological sex. Individual men are privileged because, overwhelmingly in the world and throughout history, men as a group have been privileged; more money, less domestic work, more rights, getting to keep their name in marriage, etc. Privilege is tricky, because so often the advantages and preferential treatment can seem small; for example, you get a promotion at work. Sure this is because of your hard work and general talent, but chances are that some part of the reason is that because you're a guy you are seen as 'more reliable' or a 'harder worker' or a ' leader.' I should point out that privilege is by no means a single, solid overarching thing. Not all men have the same privileges; older, more well off, heterosexual men (for example), usually have more opportunities and advantages than say, men of colour, homosexual men, lower socio-economic men, transmen etc. Gender is only one aspect among many in determining privilege. Part of the problem with male privilege and countering it is that it is often so intangible and difficult to clearly demonstrate its operation. It's based in hundreds and hundreds of years of culture and thought, and that is tough to change. And this systemic privilege isn't just changed in activism for institutional change, like women getting the vote, or being able to work, or have access to healthcare, (which are really important struggles by the way) but by changing attitudes and beliefs on an individual and cultural level. So you, as an individual male, can help the struggle for gender equality by recognising that, in some ways, you have certain advantages because of your sex. In recognising this, you can take some actions, big or small, to highlight this privilege, and make inequality based on sex or gender more visible.
Another really important thing that you can do to support women and feminism, and something closely linked to the sentiments above, is to listen to women, and respect what they say. It really should be that you listen and respect what anyone has to say, but again, history and culture have shown us that some voices get heard a whole lot less, and when they are heard, they are often not respected. Oh, and again, all this stuff is applicable to not just gender, but also factors such as class, race, and very often age (younger people in particular). So in general, listening and valuing what the women around you have to say is a good idea, even (and especially) if it is a topic that women are "traditionally" excluded from, for example car repair or something else 'blokey' is a spot on way to practice principles of equality and feminism. Also, and this links in to the whole male privilege thing, there are times and conversations with women were you should just listen, and think very carefully about speaking, the appropriateness of you speaking, and what you are saying. I'm talking about conversations where the male voice (that'd be you) often is a unneccesary or unwanted one; conversations about violence against women, including sexual violence and harassment and conversations around pregnancy and reproductive choices. In this sort of conversation it's probably best to take a back seat and to respect the experiences that you may not have had. Respecting what women say, and respecting that some conversations are for women more than men are really good ways to support women.
The final way in which males can support gender equity is perhaps the most obvious, and often (I think) the hardest. And that is actively speaking out when you see or hear behaviour which is sexist, misogynistic or generally denigrates women - say something about it. This is especially important in exclusively male, or male dominated environments where other voices of dissent may not be heard. I often find it really hard to speak up in this kind of context, especially among people who I otherwise like, respect and value. However in a few instances, after I've repeatedly called someone out for a sexist or misogynist comment, they've stopped speaking like that around me. That doesn't mean that I, on my own have caused a fundamental shift in behaviour in attitude, but it at least demonstrates that they are thinking about what they say in some circumstances. I reckon this as a good thing.
So, above are a few ways I think men can be supportive of gender equity and the goals of feminism. This is all just my own opinion, and should not be taken as gospel, and really is just a few ideas. I think it's really important to work out your own personal relationship and interactions with feminism. Like I said at the start I'd really like to hear your thoughts and comments on men and feminism.
(This piece also appears at my personal blog Critical Masculinities, which mainly consists of me writing about what masculinities mean in culture and society).
Crossposted at Girldrive
Debates about "hooking up," swinging from genuine concern to hysteria on both sides of political spectrum, have been raging throughout the 2000s.* And this week, it's seemed to bubble up to the surface again. I've spent the day reading ruminations by teen girl expert and Teen Vogue advice columnist Rachel Simmons, the always-thought provoking Kate Harding of Broadsheet, and Amanda Marcotte, who gives us a searing and passionate rebuff of any sort of nostalgia we might have about dating rules and traditions.
This rips open a wound for me--I spent most of 2007 contemplating this issue. But I'm gonna weigh in afresh now that I've just celebrated 2 years with my healthiest, post-high-school, Completely Committed Relationship (technically marriage, but that's another story)--the sex-and-love "holy grail," according to the many women's and teen magazines Kate lists in her Salon piece. Before, it was my "sorta" this or my "fuck buddy" that or my "I wish I knew what he was thinking" friend-with-benefits. And I gotta say, no matter how much I railed against Laura Sessions Stepp and Dawn Eden and Miriam Grossman and all the other rightwing, anti-feminist cautionary matrons, the facts remained: I knew how it felt to agonize over a text message. I knew how much it hurt to hear that the guy I'd been hooking up with "didn't do relationships." And I knew what it was like to use sexuality to coax a guy into being with me, only to have it fail miserably.
Feminist or not, that shit sucks. And it happens a lot, to women and girls everywhere. And yet, if you consider me and the vast majority of America who eventually couple up, it seems to end up okay. What to make of all this?
Rachel asks in the aforelinked post:
Now, just to be clear, I’m all for the freedom to hook up. But let’s face it: despite our desire to give women the freedom to plunder the bar scene and flex their sexual appetites, it would appear a whole lot of them are pretty happy playing by old school rules, thank you very much. Incidentally, one of the women smart enough to figure this out just sold her 5 billionth book, or something like that.
Does that make me a right-winger? Can I still be a feminist and say that I’m against this brand of sexual freedom? I fear feminism has been backed into a corner here. It’s become antifeminist to want a guy to buy you dinner and hold the door for you. Yet – picture me ducking behind bullet proof glass as I type this — wasn’t there something about that framework that made more space for a young woman’s feelings and needs?
I do feel where Rachel is coming from. But those old models are based on the idea that girls are fragile, that they need to be sheltered from the ills of the world. They're based on, as Kate says, being the girl that guys want. They're based on, as Amanda outlines, sexism plain and simple. So if we don't want to go the "Girls Gone Mild" route and start waiting for dudes to ask us on candlelit dates, does that mean it's hopeless to find a happy sexual medium as teens and young, single women?
Kate says no. "[I]f we teach all kids that there's a wide range of potentially healthy sexual and emotional relationships," she says, "and the only real trick (granted, it's a doozy) is finding partners who are enthusiastic about the same things you want, then there's room for a lot more people to pursue something personally satisfying at no one else's expense." That's one of the smartest statements I've ever read on this topic. Amanda, meanwhile, says we need to stop making women shoulder the burden of keeping men in check, and concentrate on getting "boys to appreciate girls more as human beings." A-fucking-men. (No pun intended.)
But there's also this: We need to admit as a culture that teens are sexual beings, and that more often than not, sexual maturity has a completely different timeline than emotional maturity. This is, to be sure, skewed by sexism and restrictive gender roles to make sexual coming-of-age worse for girls. But beyond that, maybe discovering what you want sexually and emotionally is just part of growing up--and that's okay.
And for that matter, what's with this still-dominant narrative that all teen girls should want a monogamous, snuggly, worshipping boyfriend? I wanted relationships from fantastic fucks all through high school and college, but something tells me that I repeatedly confused lust for love and convinced myself that I wanted a boyfriend, when really I just wanted a screwfest (although I can't be sure). For the record, I am not--I repeat, am not--saying that when girls write Rachel about the pain they're going through, they're not being honest with themselves. I know better than anyone how that pain feels. It's just that we never consider the power of cultural messages amid the mysterious phenomenon of girls wanting relationships more often than boys. I agree with Amanda that I don't think it's biological--there are societal patterns at work here. If we're told that casual sex is unfulfilling and that we're going to want relationships, chances are we'll end up wanting them. And why not? That's what Seventeen, Glamour, and all my friends always told me.
The interesting thing about my particular sexual history--the kind of narrative that I have yet to read about in all these books and articles about hooking up--is that I had great, pleasurable, safe sex in high school and college with guys who were nevertheless emotionally immature and noncommital and who hurt my feelings all the time. Does that mean I shouldn't have had sex with them at all--or does it mean I should have been honest with myself (and them, too) about what our relationship was really about? I do remember obsessing, crying, wishing he'd want a "real" relationship with me, as many girls who write to Rachel express. But do I regret the sex, do I feel like I "gave myself away" too early at 15? Hell No. It was one of the most exciting, fascinating, and interesting things about high school. Girls deserve to discover themselves sexually at their own pace, to be neither rushed into having sex nor shamed into not having it. They deserve to have their very own "This is bullshit" moments without wearing a chastity belt.
So, as Rachel worries: Was I permanently affected by this nebulous, masochistic phase, from accepting less than what I wanted emotionally? Yes, but not in a bad way. In fact, I'd venture to claim that without all those past experiences, I wouldn't have been equipped to be in the honest, nuanced, decidedly modern relaish I am in now.
The "hookup culture" must not be that new of a phenomenon if I was experiencing this stuff in the late nineties--and now at 25, I can employ my 10-year-old hindsight. Today, I found a fascinating piece of writing in my diary about "E," my first "boyfriend" and first lay in high school who made it perfectly clear he was not into a relationship. In a rare moment of clarity, my 15-year-old self wrote this:
"I think people are wrong when they say that sex and love HAVE to be together. I figured out why me and E have good sex. Physically, we’re in love. Our bodies are perfect for eachother, we satisfy eachother’s sexual urges like we were born for one another. And we’re not really like that personality-wise. But that’s okay! I don’t know why that’s a bad thing, and why everyone looks down upon it. Just because mentally we’re not in love doesn’t mean it’s emotionless sex. It’s not. It’s kinda like our bodies have emotions. Like our minds don’t particularly click, but our kisses and heartbeats and waves of sex drive do. What’s wrong with that???? We’re not USING eachother; we just have a connection that is very hard for people to understand. If they saw us together, they would know what I mean. I’m fine with it, and I think it will go on as long as it takes for me to find someone I have mental AND physical perfectness with, because that’s what I need to be in a relationship...And as long as I got one half, why give it up because OTHER people think its morally wrong? I mean, I wish me and E had both, but it’s been clearly established that we don’t, so fine. It doesn’t automatically turn into a bad thing."
There you have it. Love and sex don't always go together, especially for horny 15-year-olds. I could be totally off-base, but I don't think I was a freak for thinking this. If you're comfortable with accepting that teens are sexual people with their own desires, there's no getting around that boys and girls sometimes feel this way. I said this in 2007 and I still believe it now: Sex is the ultimate risk, a risk that makes human relationships complicated, intoxicating and wonderful. It's an emotional risk when you're 18 the same way it's a risk when you're 40. Each time, as long as you're safe and armed with the right info, it's amazing to feel alive and take that risk.
Granted, I was armed with the right info. I had good sex education and candid parents. But many girls are getting scolded by their elders and pressured by their peers. Some are in abstinence-only education classes and told they'll be too "used" or "dirty" for their future husbands if they have sex. The vast majority are not given the space they need to figure out what they truly want from their sexual relationships.
I agree with Rachel that it feels awful to have to compromise yourself, but testing out your sexual and romantic bottom lines may just be a rite of passage for teenagers experimenting with their sexuality--which is what the sexual revolution should have been about, rather than expecting women to simply indulge men's fantasies. I doubt things will ever be perfect the first time a girl tries to define a sexual reality that works for her--especially if she's told to follow age-old dating rules that clearly didn't work the first time around. What I do hope for the future is that young women be allowed to take moments of sexual confusion in stride without conservatives breathing down their necks, without being called sluts by their peers, without feeling like they've ruined their chances at marriage forever, without being made to think that boys are emotionless sexbots, without letting an unsatisfying relationship cross over into the abusive zone--all while getting factual information about sex and STIs from their schools and families. Don't girls deserve that much?
*Most of the freakouts over the "hookup scene" happen in the context of heterosexual relationships, since according to the majority of sexual conservatives, queer teen girls don't have peen-in-vadge sex and therefore, as Kate puts it, "don't exist."
I am 23. I started having sex with my boyfriend of 7 months at age 17. I was raised Christian, have stayed in the church until now but am seriously questioning what I believe. Ever since I first started having sex I have never been completely ok with it, always wondering whether I was doing something wrong or whether it was even ok. I would often feel extremely guilty once I reached the point of orgasm because it was like that was the time that I realized that I had given in to my desires and have done something wrong-again. (I had/have these same guilt feelings whenever I masturbate which I remember from age 12.) After the high school boyfriend I had sex with someone else a few years later but that one doesn't affect me nearly as much. A few years after that I met my now spouse. We started having sex after a few months and I always questioned whether what we were doing was ok or not, but I still wanted sex and I still enjoyed it. We got married a year ago and now I just cant enjoy sex at all. I just don't want to. When we do have sex it does feel good but not great and I feel like I am being punished for having sex before marriage. I also had a lot of pain starting close to when we got married and I eventually learned I had trich. So I don't know if I am now terrified of that happening again too? (even though we were both treated and I am supposedly cured) I have a great partner: he isn't pressuring me to get better and really wants me to be truly wanting sex otherwise he doesn't want it either. But I know he is getting anxious. How can I let go of the guilt that I have had for half my life? How can I enjoy sex again? What is wrong with me? I've discussed the spirituality aspects with several ministers and none of them think God is punishing me or that I have done anything wrong. I am also currently in counseling and we have talked at length about this sex issue and she is stumped too. I am ready to let go of this and move on but I just can't. Where should I go from here? Or should I just realize that there is no more sex in this life for me?
How long after a girl's first time should they bleed for and how heavy should they bleed?
I've wondered, with a lot of women's sexual issues, why I'm so passionate it? I am not on the pill, and somehow, I don't think we'll ever be at a point that condoms will be banned, and in the event that any store pulled a CVS, I like to think I'd have the ovaries to look the cashier dead in the face and say, "I would like a size x box of brand y condoms, please. Thanks." This is passing over the fact that most health clinics are well stocked with condoms. Banning condoms is just not happening. It's marginally more likely that women will be barred from buying them, and that too, is highly unlikely. And then even if that did happen, I'd probably don baggy clothes and wear a hat and forego the make-up and beautiful perfume and tell them my name is Virilus Andro Maximus and buy those things. Then I'd offer to do just that for other women for a price, and make some money on the side.
Every three years, I buy a dose of emergency contraception, which, knock on wood, won't actually be useful to me, until it expires, then I replace it (when I'm not actually in need of it). Back in the day, when the FDA knew damn well that it was perfectly safe and effective but was still not approving it for over the counter status, I was a high schooler. I was angry at lawmakers, of course, but I was also wondering, "Why don't sexually active girls just get a prescription from their doc beforehand, fill it, and stash it to have at the ready if and when they DO need it?"
And in the event that I had sex with a man, AND my birth control method failed AND emergency contraception failed and I found myself facing a pregnancy that I wanted to abort, well, I have money stashed away for emergencies. Now that I'm 23, this is moot, but as a minor, even with a mother who disapproved of premarital sex, I didn't have to worry about restrictions on minors, because my mother's maternity trumped her sexual values. I also lived in the suburbs of Washington, DC, so I could easily go to the city or to Maryland via mass transit. And as I'd given thought to what course of action I'd take if I got pregnant when I was thirteen, and continued thinking about it, and was damn sure that I'd haul ass to terminate ANY pregnancy that my (non-existent) lover and I didn't deliberately create, I also wouldn't get guilt-tripped out of having an abortion. All of this was passing over the fact that I was not sexually active to begin with. (All that time I WASN'T spending having sex, I was spending thinking about these hypothetical questions.)
The point is, it would be easy for me to believe that I had no dog in this fight for a woman's right to choose.
Wrong. WRONG WRONG WRONG.
Restricting women's reproductive choices is based on a view that women are only good for incubating, birthing, and raising offspring. The woman who has an abortion, even if, like most women who have abortions she already has children that she loves dearly or will eventually have children that she'll love dearly, is an affront to traditional notions of femininity simply because she didn't embrace the prospect of maternity. She went against the role that the patriarchy had assigned to her.
This is one step removed from dictating to women not to have non-procreative sex with a man (completely passing over how those who think this way probably look down even more on non-heterosexual relationships). This is one step removed from proscribing ANY non-procreative sexual expression, including masturbation. It's one step removed from punishing completely asexual women, for failing to give birth, because that too is tantamount to failing to be a child-bearer.
It's also only one step removed from vilifying any behavior at all that doesn't fit into a very narrow mold of traditional femininity. I don't know about you, but I want to laugh at crude jokes (no, not rape jokes), I want to watch South Park, I want to be good at math, I want to argue, I want to wear pants some days, I want to hear people say swear words, I want to be a nerd, I want to earn an income, I want to be able to admit freely that I do in fact use the bathroom. Etc. Restricting other women's access to reproductive health services is not far removed from restricting my own right to do any of the above or even to write this very essay.
Being pro-choice is about a whole lot more than just abortion or even birth control for that matter. Even if the question of abortion access is completely moot to you, even if you're married and your husband got a vasectomy, even if you're asexual, it still behooves you to care about access to abortion just because it's a proxy for the place in society of anyone who isn't a cis-gendered, heterosexual man.
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