Posts in category Power

The Shame that Doesn’t Belong to Me


 

He was my boyfriend. I was 17. I lied to my parents about having a sleepover at my friend's house so I could instead stay out all night with him and friends. We rented a room at a local motel so we could have a place to hang out and drink and have fun. I remember drinking some kind of hard alcohol straight up, poured about a third of the way up a red Solo cup. My boyfriend encouraged me to drink it. I looked up and stared at a spot on the ceiling as I choked it down, feeling a little muscle twitch under my left eye. It was nasty, but I tried to just chug the stuff without tasting it as best I could.


 

The next thing I remember, I felt really drunk. The room was spinning. I felt unsteady on my feet. I was slurring. And then my boyfriend wanted to have sex. I don't think any other people were in the room at the time, but I'm not entirely sure. I don't remember consenting ... not like I had the ability in that state anyway. What I do remember is him undressing me, him on top of me, him flipping me over and moving my limp body around, him essentially masturbating with my body, and me feeling more like a rag doll than a human being.


 

After that night, I felt disappointed and hurt. But I didn't completely blame him. I mean, I chose to drink. I chose to let myself get that drunk. He was my boyfriend and he claimed he loved me. We'd had sex before. He was a guy, so of course he'd want to have sex. I didn't say no (I don't think I did, but I'm not sure). I didn't know that that was rape. I blamed myself and made excuses for him.


 

_____________________________


 

He was my coworker. I was 19. He was cute and cocky, and I had a little crush on him. But he never paid much attention to me. It was his last day of work, and a group of us went out to party and say goodbye. The more I drank, the more interest he showed. Several of us ended up going back to another coworker's apartment. We started making out in a bedroom. I was pretty wasted. He kept pushing, but I resisted. I just wanted to make out, nothing more. I didn't believe in casual sex. I wanted to be in love first. That wasn't what he wanted. I remember us getting kicked out of the bedroom. We ended up on the living room floor, still making out. He kept trying for more. I must've continued resisting because I remember him repeatedly telling me, "Relax. Relax." Clearly I wasn't. I remember him putting on a condom and having sex with me as he continued telling me to "relax."


 

He promised to call the next day. Of course he didn't. I felt used. I tried to tell myself that it wasn't a big deal, that lots of people have one-night stands. Who could blame him? I was a willing participant in making out, even if I wasn't enthusiastic about having sex. I mean, I chose to drink that night, and I chose to make out with him. Maybe I led him on. Once again, I blamed myself and made excuses for him.

 

______________________________


 

Yesterday, I heard a woman talk about being grateful that nothing bad ever happened to her when she was drinking in her younger years, and how she felt lucky considering the "situations she put herself in."


 

I used to agree with that idea. I no longer do. I now recognize that I have been sexually assaulted on more than those two occasions while I happened to be intoxicated. I spent years minimizing what happened -- other women had it much worse, I didn't scream or fight so it must not have been that bad, it was more subtle than a blatantly violent act, etc. Instead, I blamed myself for putting myself in those situations and I internalized that shame.


 

But that stops now.


 

I will no longer take on shame that does not belong to me. The shame belongs to the men who CHOSE to take advantage of me in my weakened state, who PREYED upon that weakness, who felt ENTITLED to do what they wanted with MY body, who treated me as an OBJECT for their enjoyment. I will no longer blame myself (or other women) for "putting themselves in situations." I will no longer excuse bad male behavior as "boys will be boys." Men need to be held accountable for assaulting women no matter how much we've been drinking, no matter what we're wearing, no matter what situations "we put ourselves in."


 

I don't give a shit if a woman is naked and blacked-out drunk. NO ONE has the right to sexually assault her. And I'm fucking sick of the onus being on women to take all sorts of precautions to somehow "avoid" being assaulted instead of putting that responsibility where it belongs -- on men who feel so fucking entitled to take what they want.


 

I will no longer blame the victim, including myself. I will no longer take on the shame that belongs to someone else.


 

Roe v. Wade & Bodily Autonomy

The Jezebel Effect: Why the Slut Shaming of Famous Queens Still Matters


[Note: This is a guest post by Kyra Cornelius Kramer about her new book, The Jezebel Effect: Why the Slut Shaming of Famous Queens Still Matters.]




  When someone mentions Jezebel, what are they usually talking about? I’ll bet you little green apples to emeralds that they aren’t discussing the fact she was a powerful Phoenician princess and diplomat who opened up ancient Israel to Mediterranean trade. Nope, she is remembered as a makeup wearing harlot who married King Ahab, a woman so naughty even her very name became synonymous with “slut.”  

She is far from the only strong female ruler remembered more for bogus slanders than for real accomplishments. When people think of Cleopatra, most remember her for asses’ milk baths and seduction, not the fact she offered refuge in Alexandria to the Jewish peoples fleeing Roman oppression. When the topic of Catherine the Great comes up, people are more likely to remember the falsehood that she died during sex with a horse than the fact that she was the first ruler to coax her populace into being inoculated against smallpox, saving thousands upon thousands of lives. Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, is unfairly and erroneously remembered as a homewrecker, not a woman who was relentlessly pursued by the king and had little choice but to eventually agree to marry him. Henry VIII’s fifth queen, the young and vivacious Katheryn Howard, is remembered as a dimwit who couldn’t keep her skirts down, not as a victim of a Renaissance honor killing. None of these women are remembered for facts -- they are immortalized as evil feminist snakes in the patriarchal paradise.  

The Jezebel Effect: Why the Slut Shaming of Famous Queens Still Matters exposes the lies about these female rulers, and tries to drive away the dark myths surrounding them with the light of historical truth. The book points out that Jezebel was a grandmother whose son and grandson were just murdered by the man who ordered her thrown out a window to her death; he had a vested interest in tarnishing her memory. Cleopatra was a queen fighting for her nation, and she held off Roman imperialism using every means at her disposal, including using her body as a way to seal peace treaties. Catherine the Great was a despot, but an Enlightened one determined to bring education and roads and hospitals to a country sorely lagging behind the rest of Europe. Anne Boleyn was a woman forced to wed her stalker, and she was the driving force behind the English language Bible. This queen’s biggest sin was actually to be stronger and smarter than most of the men around her. As for her cousin, Katheryn Howard, this young woman was murdered for the iniquitous crime of having slept with one man -- her long term boyfriend -- before she caught King Henry VIII’s eye.  

Why are these women remembered as trollops rather than troopers? Why are their accomplishments and victories elided, and their deaths celebrated? Why is their sex life fictionalized or exaggerated and used to slut shame them?  

These famous queens aren’t called sluts because they were promiscuous -- only two of them could even boast serial monogamy, let alone promiscuity. The only one of these rulers to have multiple lovers was Empress Catherine, and even then she was romantically involved with only one man at a time, often for a duration of several years. No, these queens aren’t called sluts because of who they did -- they are called sluts for whatthey did. Like all forms of slut shaming, it has very little to do with a woman’s actual sex life. Boss queens were not slut shamed because they had sex with men; they were slut shamed because they behaved like men. They had power and autonomy and changed their sociocultural environment. That’s the true crime for which they are have been historically slut shamed as punishment. Slut shaming is just the means to the end of disempowering these rulers.  

The Jezebel Effect isn’t just about correcting historical misconceptions and exposing the lies about some of history’s most dynamic female leaders, although that is certainly a worthy goal. It is also about the larger issue of gender ideologies and slut shaming as a whole. One of the ways that cultural norms about gender, the understanding of the “way people should be,” is transmitted and solidified in the public mind is by official history. A shared understanding and belief in history is a key part of the construction of social identity. What cultural message does it send when the strongest women in history are almost always portrayed and rewritten as sluts? Gender ideology is often implicit, and the way history depicts women is one of the major ways of culturally messaging how women SHOULD behave.  

Moreover, The Jezebel Effect attempts to show how historical slut shaming is used to replicate slut shaming in the modern era. Don’t think there is a connection between Anne Boleyn and GamerGate in 2014? Ah, let me sing you a song that says otherwise! In The Jezebel Effect, I have attempted to spell out the link between slut-shamed queens and the sociobiological arguments of gendered stereotypes, discrediting women, the glass ceiling, and rape culture. From Shirley Temple to Wikileaks, I try to reveal the way the cultural tapestry is woven, so every woman can see the hidden picture in the fabric. Strong women are slut shamed, then as now, for the audacity of being strong, rather than anything they actually do with their bodies.  

That’s what I want more people to know. That’s why I wrote the book.  


About the Author:

Kyra Cornelius Kramer has degrees in biology and anthropology from the University of Kentucky, and a graduate degree in medical anthropology from Southern Methodist University. She has been published in several peer reviewed journals, including The Historical Journal (Cambridge) and the Journal of Popular Romance Studies. Her first book, Blood Will Tell: A Medical Explanation for the Tyranny of Henry VIII, was a #1 best-seller on Amazon. She is an American living in Wales with her husband, three daughters, and several yappy wee rescue dogs. You can read her blog at kyrackramer.com, keep up with her on her Facebook author page, or follow her on Twitter @KyraKramer. Her book, The Jezebel Effect: Why the Slut Shaming of Famous Queens Still Matters, is available on Amazon.      



Street Harassment & Power

MaryWollstonecraft

Female Uprising

FemaleUprising

Chimamanda on Feminism

Chimamanda2                   Excerpt from her article for The Guardian.

Halloween IS Scary!

In the past several years, Halloween has morphed into something really scary. Not because of the blood and gore, creepy decorations, or traditionally spooky costumes, but because of how it reinforces the cultural narrative about women.   Halloween used to be the day when you could put on a disguise and pretend to be someone else for the night. For women, it could be a reprieve from the daily pressure to look thin, beautiful, and sexy. But instead of a day off from that pressure, Halloween is now a day to amp it up. Nearly every option for women is a sexy take on a traditional costume, from fetishized caricatures from porn to the totally absurd, such as the Sexy Hamburger, the Sexy Crayon, the Sexy Skittles, the Sexy Sponge Bob, and the Sexy Nemo (the clown fish from Finding Nemo). I just ... I ... have no words:                     But it's not all just harmless fun. Even child characters in fairy tales have been made into sexed-up costumes for women, e.g., Sexy Little Red Riding Hood, Sexy Goldilocks, and Sexy Alice in Wonderland. (See more examples here).                       In addition to fairy tale characters, here are a few other ways for women to dress up as sexy little girls -- the Sexy Girl Scout, the Sexy Schoolgirl, and the Sexy Baby (WTF is wrong with people?!):                       What's so troubling about these costumes is that:
"... [M]any of the 'sexy' costumes are highly sexualized versions of characters who are supposed to be little girls ... The fact that many women dress up as sexy little girls points to both the sexualization of female children and the infantilization of adult women."  
  The sexualization of girls teaches them early on that their value lies in their appearance, their bodies, and their sexuality. The American Psychological Association found that sexualization damages girls' feelings of self-worth, impairs their mental functioning, and contributes to eating disorders. In other words, it fucks girls up. The infantilization of adult women reinforces attitudes that women should be treated as naive, dependent, and incapable of making intelligent decisions or holding leadership roles. In other words, it fucks women over.   Another disturbing trend in sexy costumes is linking sexuality with violence. Here are some creepy sexy costumes, such as female versions of horror movie serial killers -- Sexy Leatherface (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Sexy Jason (Friday the 13th), and Sexy Michael Myers (Halloween). I guess the Sexy Body Bag (seriously, who comes up with this shit?!) fits in here as well :/ :                   Of course, many Halloween costumes are intended to be frightening or gory, but turning a male horror movie killer that often targets scantily-clad female victims into a scantily-clad female horror movie killer has some interesting connotations. Horror movie killers tend to murder (punish) the sexually open "whores" early on, while the good girl "virgins" often escape (reward). Underlying the sexy female killer is a misogynistic fear of female sexuality and power -- it threatens conservative social attitudes about women owning our sexuality and our bodies. It also sparks our own conflicted feelings about sexuality or our insecurities about other women being competition or threats. Since all of these fears are uncomfortable, they must be buried or "killed".   Clearly, there are lots of "sexy" costumes for women, but those for men are a bit different. This Tumblr page has tons of examples of the same costume idea, but different versions for him and her. The differences are quite striking when you look at them side-by-side. His costumes are typically silly, while hers are always sexy. Here are his-and-hers versions of Tigger, Skunk, Firefighter, and Astronaut:                                       Making sexy versions of non-sexy characters like Tigger or Skunk invariably make sexiness cross into absurdity. However, sexing-up women's costumes of traditionally male careers, such as Firefighter or Astronaut, is another breed of animal. First, how could women realistically fight fires in a mini-skirt, garters, and fishnets or work in zero gravity in a mini-skirt and a top that low-cut? The answer is that they can't. And that speaks to deeper cultural beliefs about what women should and shouldn't do. Underlying sexy costumes such as these are sexist beliefs about a woman's place in society. Women taking on traditionally male roles is treated as absurd in itself, and the only way to make it okay is to sexualize it. This reinforces beliefs that we're primarily sexual objects and that we don't belong in certain careers or positions of power unless we're there to support men.   So far, we've only looked at sexy costumes for women, but men have a few choices as well: the Breathalizer (Get it? You "blow" into that straw between his legs), the One Night Stand, and the Pimp (Parents -- make sure to teach your sons early that women are "hos" to exploit for money and status!):
 
              There's obviously a discrepancy between men's and women's sexy costumes:
"... [W]hen women go sexy for Halloween, it usually means being seen as a sex object for others.  When men go sexy, it means joking about how men should be sexually serviced, have access to one night stands, or being in charge of and profiting from women’s bodies.  A different type of 'sexy' entirely."  
  That's it. I'm skipping Halloween. These are all just too scary for me. :/

Amy Schumer

AmySchumer1

Lewis’ Law

Sometimes I get cheerful messages from fine young gentlemen like this on the Beauty Is Inside Facebook page. Lucky me! This is how I dealt with a recent one. As Lewis' Law states: "Comments on any article about feminism justify feminism." Yep. I'd have to agree with that. :/ Eminem

Chely Wright on Political Correctness

ChelyWright

Rape Prevention Poster

I've seen this rape prevention poster with the added commentary circulating around social media lately. I decided to fix it.   RapePoster

OK Cupid

My cousin just had this lovely exchange with a guy on OK Cupid. She said they had just started chatting. He first told her she was beautiful, she said thank you, she asked how his week was going ... and then this is how the conversation progressed.   She certainly dodged a douche. :/   OKCupid

Smile!

Ilana and Abbi from Comedy Central's "Broad City" have the perfect response to a random stranger telling them to smile. :D

 

Smile_BroadCity

Barbara Mikulski

Barbara Mikulski

Annie Lennox

AnnieLennox

Backlash

Backlash

Saying No

SayingNo

Keith Olbermann

Political commentator Keith Olbermann goes off on the NFL's acceptance of sexism and violence against women. This rant comes after the league punished Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice with a mere slap on the wrist -- a two-game suspension -- after he knocked out his girlfriend then dragged her unconscious body out of an elevator.

 

Olbermann

  Watch the video:  

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928 - May 28, 2014) This phenomenal woman truly showed that when beauty is inside, it shines outside too. Maya   (Quote from Huffington Post)

Warsan Shire

Warsan

Adult Supervision?

A Facebook friend posted the original version, so I decided to fix it.


HusbandsChildren

Helen Mirren

HelenMirren

Getting “Emotional” Over the Paycheck Fairness Act

  Via Huffington Post:

"Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) ripped apart the stereotype that women are 'too emotional' on Wednesday, moments after Senate Republicans blocked a procedural motion to advance the Paycheck Fairness Act. ...

  "Mikulski sponsored the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would cut into the gender pay gap by holding employers more accountable for wage discrimination against women. An effort to begin debate on the measure failed 53-44, with all Republicans and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) voting against the cloture motion. All Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voted in favor of advancing the bill.

  "Mikulski's comments were not just directed toward her Republican colleagues, but were also a thinly-veiled shot at former CIA director Michael Hayden. On Sunday, Hayden suggested that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was 'too emotional' to have produced a Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA's use of torture post-Sept. 11."

  Senator

Natalie Portman

NataliePortman

D.H. Lawrence

Here's an old school response to sexism that unfortunately is still relevant today.

"A lost D.H. Lawrence essay in which the famed author issued a major takedown to a misogynistic contemporary has been found in a library in New Zealand."

 

Lawrence was the author of classic novels such as Lady Chatterley's Lover and Women in Love. Regarding the newly-discovered essay:

"Lawrence wrote the piece some time in late 1923 or early 1924 in response to an essay published in Adelphi, a literary magazine ... That essay, which ran under the byline 'JHR,' was a viciously misogynistic treatise called 'The Ugliness of Women.' Its author argued that 'in every woman born there is a seed of terrible, unmentionable evil: evil such as man — a simple creature for all his passions and lusts — could never dream of in the most horrible of nightmares, could never conceive in imagination. ... No doubt, the evil growth is derived from Eve, who certainly did or thought something wicked beyond words.'"

 

Here's an excerpt of Lawrence's enlightened response:

DHLawrence

Diana Nyad

DianaNyad

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a renowned Nigerian novelist. She gave a powerful presentation at TEDxEuston entitled "We Should All Be Feminists". This is an excerpt from her speech:

Chimamanda

Watch the full presentation here:  

Anne Hathaway

AnneHathaway2

Marion Bartoli

No matter how accomplished or how talented a woman is, her appearance is always treated as relevant. Here's one example. BBC tennis commentator, John Inverdale, had this to say about France's Marion Bartoli who just won Wimbledon's women's singles title:

"I just wonder if her dad, because he has obviously been the most influential person in her life, did say to her when she was 12, 13, 14 maybe, 'listen, you are never going to be, you know, a looker. You are never going to be somebody like a [Maria] Sharapova, you're never going to be 5ft 11, you're never going to be somebody with long legs, so you have to compensate for that."

 

Bartoli took this powerful swing in response:

Tennis_MarionBartoli

Tina Fey

TinaFey2

Hillary Clinton

HillaryClinton

Anne Frank

  Anne Frank would've been 84 years old today. She was truly a beautiful person, inside & out.  

AnneFrank

Tori Amos

ToriAmos

Mary Wollstonecraft

MaryWollstonecraft

Don’t Tread On Others

DontTread

Not All I Am

NotAllIAm

 

... nor will I allow others to treat me as if this is all I am:

 
  • - a uterus
  • - a collection of body parts
  • - a vagina
  • - a piece of ass
  • - a pair of tits
  • - a victim
  • - public property
  • - a virgin
  • - a whore
  • - a "before" photo
  • - a body to legislate
  • - a sexual object
  None of these things can possibly define a woman.

If Men Posed Like Women Do

 

The media's treatment of women as sex objects is a ubiquitous fact of life. Advertisements, fashion spreads, comic books, movie posters -- nearly everywhere you look, women are shown in various stages of undress and posed in positions that make them look vulnerable, submissive, and sexually available. Conversely, men are depicted in positions of power or dominance, e.g., standing while a woman is reclining, being fully clothed while she's undressed, etc. These differences reinforce inequality between the sexes. Really, how powerful can a woman feel when she's half-naked and awkwardly contorted?

 

It's an interesting social experiment to see what happens when men are placed in these typical "female" poses.

The image below features two Vanity Fair covers: the top one with fully-clothed fashion designer Tom Ford, along with a nude Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson; and the bottom one is a Vanity Fair spoof of their own cover with a fully-clothed Paul Rudd and a pretend-nude Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, and Jason Segel. In a separate issue, Vanity Fair also did a photo spread with comedians Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, and Tina Fey, but posed them as typical sex objects. As Entertainment Weekly asks, would it be "... just as uproarious if some of those ladies vamped ironically in body stockings[?] ... Men being objectified is so silly as to be hilarious, but it’s better if funny women are also hot."

   

Here's a similar set of images showing nude female models huddled together and then one with the guys from the "Jackass" TV series and movies: 

 

The following "men-ups" were created by photographer Rion Sabean to parody classic pin-up poses. According to Rion, his work focuses on "... gender and sexuality, wherein I attempt to bring light to the scrutiny and judgments of a society that defines human beings under rigid, antiquated terms."

   

Artist Paul Richmond created a similar series from a gay male perspective. "I began the Cheesecake Boys series to rectify the inequalities in the underwear-flashing art genre known as pin-up," said Richmond.

 

 

Here's Richmond explaining how he came up with the concept, along with more examples of his work:

 

 

Fantasy author Jim Hines parodied women's poses on the covers of fantasy novels by trying to replicate the poses himself. (He also did a series posing like the men on romance novel covers). "... [M]ost of these covers are supposed to convey strong, sexy heroines, but these are not poses that suggest strength. You can’t fight from these stances. I could barely even walk," said Hines.

 

  Do these images look ridiculous? Silly? Maybe even homoerotic? Once men are placed in the same sexualized poses that women are traditionally seen in, it becomes clear how absurd -- and sexist -- these poses truly are.  

You Don’t Have To Be Pretty

YouDon'tOwePrettyToAnyoneRead the full article here: A Dress A Day

Appearance Comments Can Hurt Her Success

Calling professional women "good looking" can be damaging to their careers. This survey conducted by the Name It Change It campaign by the Women's Media Center shows why:

"In the survey, Jane Smith and Dan Jones are pitted against each other in a race for Congress. Both have similar backgrounds, and after reading their bios the survey respondents prefer Jane slightly, 49-48.


"Then they read a second story. In one version of the story, there's no physical description of either candidate, and Jane's lead stays pretty much the same. In a second version, there's a neutral description of Jane's appearance. Suddenly she's 5 points behind Dan. In a third version, there's a positive description of her appearance. Now she's 13 points behind Dan. A fourth version that contains a negative description has about the same effect.


"In other words, any description hurts Jane. And any non-neutral description, even a positive one, just kills her. This is why even a complimentary comment ... is both inappropriate and damaging in a professional setting. It primes people to think of a woman's appearance, and that's apparently enough to keep them from thinking about her actual qualifications. You will be unsurprised to learn that this effect is strongest among men."

 

Read more at Mother Jones.


Sarah Silverman

Mike White

Roseanne

She’s Ugly! (Because He’s a Moron)


This quote originally appeared in an article on Jezebel regarding criticisms of Hillary Clinton's appearance.

Anais Nin

We must Teach Our Girls

Slut, Defined

Harvey Milk

Woman on the Internet

My Strength Is not for Hurting

This poster is from the new anti-rape campaign: "My strength is not for hurting." MyStrength is a project of the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault. This awesome campaign puts responsibility for rape prevention where it belongs -- on the potential rapist. Learn more here: http://www.mystrength.org/

 

Amy Poehler

Buy me a coffeeBuy me a coffee