Michelle Thrush

Vancouver Tour 2012

In acknowledgement of National Aboriginal Achievement Awards and Full Circle First Nations 11th Annual Talking Stick Festival

Battered Women’s Support Services

presents

Michelle Thrush

A One Woman Show (x 2)

Michelle Thrush, 2011 Gemini award for Best Lead Actress for her role on the APTN hit series Blackstone. Michelle uses her gift as an actor to promote healing through the arts and to explore creative expression. Michelle is well known for her work in community, including the teaching drama and comedy act  “Kookum Martha” the elder that tells it like it is!! And “Majica” Right Next Door, who through story and drama allows a safe place for adults to connect with their own childhood memories to promote healing and empowerment.

Join us for two extraordinary events

Performance # 1

Michelle Thrush

as

Majica

W2

111 West Hastings Street, Vancouver

Thursday, February 23, 2012

1 to 3 pm

Performance #2

Michelle Thrush

as

Kookum Martha

And

the Blues, Roots and Soul of Murray Porter, arriving straight from receiving a JUNO nomination for his new album `Songs Lived & Life Played’

Native Education College

285 East 5^th Avenue, Vancouver

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Doors at 7 pm

Tickets sliding scale $5 – $20

For more information email Monica Louis at monica@bwss.org or call her at 604-687-1868

This event is a collaboration between Native Education College and Battered Women’s Support Services

On the Shafia Case…

by Elamin Abdelmahmoud

On the Shafia case..

Hey yo.

I don’t want to spent a lot of time on this matter, but I was stirred to comment (however briefly) about the Shafia murder trial.

I presume your basic knowledge of the case, as most mainstream media outlets spent a considerable time with it. It was, after all, a most horrific crime. Today, the verdict was handed down to the father, brother, and mother – all guilty, and all facing life in prison.

Before going on, I would like to reiterate the heinousness of the crime here.  I have no intention of arguing for the convicted members of the Shafia family, making excuses for them, or pardoning them of the crimes they have been accused, charged, and convicted of.

This piece was inspired purely by the discussion that the verdict has generated.  Specifically, the expression of outrage at ‘honour killings’ (the going term) and the lament for Canadian multiculturalism and how it has gone too far. I would like to suggest that, actually, by dubbing this an honour killing, we satisfy an elementary understanding of the crime while sidestepping the larger point.

The point, of course, is that this was a crime about control. Shafia was obviously exercising a level of control over the victims, and asserting his male dominance by robbing them of their agency. The violent act was Shafia’s response based on his belief that he has agency over these women, and they ought to act according to his worldview, a worldview many attribute to his ethnic background.

I have no intention of condoning this particular worldview. Y’all use words like “backwards”, “uncivilized”, and I’m not sure if those words are the precise words, but I’ll take your words and instead sub in “unacceptable”. I think that’s fairly agreeable? You can add an F word for good measure.

Where we go wrong in the discussion is here: we take Shafia’s robbing of women’s agency (with its cultural justification) and we call it an ‘honour killing’.

Instead, I suggest we drop the specific-language act and instead, we call it what it is: an exercise of controlling women.  A deplorable practice of abuse of women, one that depends on deeming women not worthy of making decisions about their own bodies.

The reason I suggest we abandon using exceptional language is this: the same underlying assumption, the assumption that women ought to not make decisions about their own bodies, that women are not deserving of agency over their own destinies is used every single day in “our culture”, whatever you take that to mean (In this particular piece, I am taking that to mean some dominant culture, and not diving too deep into this).

Every time a woman is raped, a policy is passed about women’s bodies without taking agency into account, or a domestic abuse is committed, it is stemming from that exact belief. It gets a bit tiresome making the parallel everytime: Yes, a man who commits an “honour killing” is using his cultural baggage to justify his horrible act. But you know what? So is a man who rapes a woman because he thinks women’s bodies do not belong to them.

The mistake, in my opinion, made in discussing the Shafia case is assuming that cultural baggage only affects a certain segment of the population. Worse, there also seems to be an assumption that rape is a bunch of singular incidents and not culturally learned. Same thing as domestic abuse. We barely connect these crimes to a cultural learning that is pervasive throughout our culture, and that learning is the same one Shafia, his son and his wife were guilty of: the learning that women’s bodies must be controlled, and that women should possess less agency over their bodies.

So, to sum it up: Yes, the murder of these women was a heinous crime. Yes, it is a result of cultural understanding of how much agency women should have over their own bodies. But we need to ask ourselves, how many other crimes are we not attributing to the same cultural understanding? Stop calling it honour killing, and start calling it an exercise of stripping women of power. Then look for other examples of it, and you’ll find them all around you.

I have no intention of “relegating or implicitly excusing the role of culture” in this crime, as some folks have commented to me. On the contrary, I’m asking you to consider the role of culture in all violence against women.

As a final word, I guess, one of the hardest lessons I’ve learned is to question where my gut response is coming from. I’m not assuming yours is invalid. I am, however asking you to consider the possibility that it might be coming from a place of not spending time questioning where your own ideas may be coming from.

Oh, hey, if you have a comment back, tweet me: @elamin88.

_______________________________________

Editor’s Note:

At Battered Women’s Support Services, we have spoken about the need for a deeper analysis and understanding of violence against women and the role of culture.  Our training programs, our speaks and our written materials always present an understanding that violence against women is an issue across and within all cultures, communities, nation states and is profoundly embedded in what we would understand as mainstream Canadian culture. The continuation of highlighting the specific manifestations violence against women within specific “cultures” through over representing specific “cultures” as some how more violent presumably than Canadian “culture” is a misrepresentation of the culture of violence against women that all the women who access Battered Women’s Support Services know all too well.  The following Spiral of Gender Violence illustrates how violence follows girls and women through the life cycles.

UPDATE* In 2010, Gerald Caplan wrote the following for the Globe and Mail:

“But terrible things still happen to women everywhere, as the domestic violence figures for Canada demonstrate. No nation, religion, class or ethnic group has the monopoly on misogyny. Honour killings should be seen not as uniquely evil but as the most extreme and perverse proof of this truth. That’s why it’s encouraging that women’s equality groups have been so vocal in their denunciations of all violence against women and are supporting women in minority communities to give them the strength to stand up for their rights.

Despite the remarkable progress women have truly made in the past half-century, clawing for every inch of it, the struggle for women’s equality can never rest. It simply has too many enemies, always fighting to keep women in their place, where they belong, dead or alive. Young women who dismiss feminism as irrelevant or outdated are, I’m afraid, dead wrong. The struggle is never over.”

UPDATE *

Yasmin Jiwani offered the following in the Montreal Gazette:

“Calling the murders “honour killings” accomplishes two goals. First, it makes it seem as if femicide is a highly unusual event. Second, it makes it seem as if femicide is confined to specific populations within Canada and specific national cultures or religions in the world at large. But Canadian statistics prove otherwise. According to StatsCan figures, from 2000 to 2009 an average of 58 women a year were killed in this country as a result of spousal violence. In that same period, 67 children and young people aged 12 to 17 were murdered by family members. In contrast, recent estimates tell us that there have been 12 or 13 so-called honour killings in Canada in the last decade. It does not take a genius to see that comparing 12 or 13 against the hundreds of women and children who were victims of familial violence serves only to frame “honour killing” as peculiar, when in reality it is part of a larger pattern of violence against women.”

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Should+call+honour+killing/6074266/story.html#ixzz1l4jYw7Y6

The Lifetime Spiral is designed by Asian & Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Violence (2007)

We recognize that it is of critical importance to identify the historic, legal, attitudinal and behavioural discrimination women experience that is embedded in mainstream Canadian culture and within Immigrant communities.  The message continues to be a difficult one for Canadian society to manage as illustrated in the following media reports and in the promotional materials for an upcoming training for service providers co-sponsored by Vancouver Police Department and BC Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General.

http://www.vancouversun.com/Shafia+jury+finds+guilty+shameful+honour+killings/6071601/story.html

http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20120130/mtl_shafia_community_120130/20120130/?hub=MontrealHome

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/01/30/mohammad-shafia-was-so-obsessed-so-closed-minded/

FEMINISM IS FOR EVERYBODY – Passionate Politics

by bell hooks

Feminism is for Everybody – Passionate Politics

INTRODUCTION
Come Closer to Feminism
Everywhere I go I proudly tell folks who want to know who I am and what I do that I am a writer, a feminist theorist, a cultural critic. I tell them I write about movies and popular culture, analyzing the
message in the medium. Most people find this exciting and want to know more. Everyone goes to movies, watches television, glances through magazines, and everyone has thoughts about the messages
they receive, about the images they look at. It is easy for the diverse public I encounter to understand what I do as a cultural critic, to understand my passion for writing (lots of folks want to write, and do).
But feminist theory – that’s the place where the questions stop. Instead I tend to hear all about the evil of feminism and the bad feminists:

• how "they" hate men;

Myths and Realities of Sexual Abuse

The law is not enough, raise your awareness and stop sexual violence

We are looking forward to joining The Arts Undergraduate Society of the University of British Columbia (AUS)  and their event during Sexual Assault Awareness Month campaign Myths and Realities of Sexual Abuse. You can find more information about the campaign here SAAM.

Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) is a UBC student-driven, community initiative to help put an end to sexual violence and make campus safer for everyone! They want to engage and inform and their focus is a positive one – intending to inspire people to realize that stopping sexual assault is everyone’s responsibility, and that as friends and bystanders, there are important and concrete actions we can all take to raise awareness and stop violence.

Please Don’t Give Up…I Didn’t

by Rhonda Lee Vermette

About a year ago now, I was phoning around trying to find domestic violence counselling services for myself. I had phoned a few places and as I tried to explain the situation that I had been court ordered to take domestic violence counselling, most places would not listen to me after they heard that. I had made the attempt to explain that it was not because I was an abuser, but that I was the abused and how I even got myself into the criminal activity was that I was bullied into it by my abuser, thus resulting in the domestic violence counselling sentence. I finally contacted Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS) and they listened to what I had to say and I was in for my first session within days.

I am originally from a small Saskatchewan city and spent 15 years in an extremely abusive relationship (in every aspect) with my abuser passing away 6 months prior to starting counselling here in Vancouver. During the last 4 years of the relationship we were under investigation for drug trafficking which resulted in my sentence and during that investigation, police listened live to me being beaten and/or raped on more than one occasion but never intervened in order to protect their drug intervention. I wasn’t able to deal with the many different ways I was affected, until I had started the counselling at BWSS.

I was really lost, limiting my contact with the outside world by never leaving my house other than for appointments with physicians, lawyers or counselling sessions. I had become quite anti-social which is not normal for me. My counselling sessions have brought me to talk about the devastating things that have happened to me and the survival skills and techniques I developed over time. The abuse I had experienced over the years had changed me in so many ways that I had never even realized it. I believe my biggest issues were fear and trust. I say this because of the extreme levels of abuse I suffered and how I interacted with other people. One thing I remember is during these assaults I would wish for someone to walk in and stop them. To later find out the police were there and listening, turning blind eyes to what was happening to me, almost absolutely destroyed me.

Now that I have been in counselling for a year, I have come to terms with what happened to me was wrong and something that I can never turn the clock back on. But, I can start making changes for the future not only for myself, but for other victims of domestic violence by telling my story and how I managed to survive. BWSS has given me back my courage and strength as a woman to deal with my pain and anger. They have also made me aware that I am not alone in my suffering. They play a huge role in my path of healing and if not for them I do not know where I would be today. PRAISE to you, the staff and volunteers at BWSS, for giving me back to me, my family and the rest of the world.

Legal Advocacy Workshops

at

Battered Women’s Support Services

Battered Women’s Support Services, Legal Advocacy Program announces 2012 Legal Advocacy Workshops to support women dealing with violence/abuse and legal issues with a specific emphasis on Family Law

Workshops will be held Wednesday from 12 noon to 2 pm

Location: Battered Women’s Support Services in Vancouver (for confidentiality purposes please call us to obtain the address)

In Attendance: The BWSS Legal Advocate, Annie Zhang, a volunteer lawyer (may be male) and women who need support with their current legal cases.

Format of Workshop: These workshops are designed for women who are ineligible for legal aid and/or in need of legal support for their cases. Lawyers and other professionals with experience on the topic will facilitate all workshops. Women may bring forms or relevant paperwork to the workshop for their own self-reference.

What is provided?

Legal information, strategies for specific legal issues/topics

Resources

Coffee/tea

For registration and information call the Intake Line at 604-687-1867

The Journey of One

By Anon

How did I end up at Battered Women’s Support Services? This is my journey…

My parents are immigrants. My Mom is from Trinidad and my Dad is from Germany. They immigrated to Canada in the 1960′s. They met, got married, and had three girls of which I am the youngest. They had no family here to help support them, just themselves.

When I was approximately 3 years old my parents left me with an acquaintance for 3-4 days without my siblings. My Mom had to have surgery and my Dad was working; so my Mom asked the next-door neighbours if they could look after us. They agreed, but they had 2 children of their own. My parents worried that they were causing too much of a burden for the neighbour, so when the pastor’s daughter, an acquaintance, offered to take the “the baby”, they agreed. They thought it would be easier for everybody.
One day our family went to the pastor’s daughter’s house; we had never been there before. I don’t know how long we stayed, but what happened there would have a devastating impact on me. I remember being in the lady’s arms with my back to the window when I noticed the room had gotten quiet. I looked around to see what happened. My family was gone. Fear and shock hit me and this primal sound came out of me. Panicked, I frantically tried to get out of the lady’s arms. As I struggled, I saw my family. They were outside walking towards the car. Desperately I screamed and tried to get their attention, “Mom, Dad wait!” “Mom, Dad, wait!! … I’m here …you forgot about me! …you forgot about me!!!” It did not matter what I did; they did not see or hear me. It was like I was invisible. Then they left.

I get emotional when I think about my abandonment experience, even though it was not intentional and it happened 37 years ago. It was a traumatic experience, and traumatic experiences have cellular memory.

My mother picked me up 3-4 days later. I remember when she came; I acted like I did not see her. I was so wounded words could not explain. I remember feeling anger towards her. You left me. You hurt me. The carpet had been whipped out from under my feet. I feared any moment it could happen again. My safety and security was breached. My defences would remain on high, and subconsciously I vowed that I would never let anybody hurt me like that again. The environment in which I was raised was difficult. My mother was a strong loving woman, but she worried a lot. She also imposed some of her beliefs and experiences on us. My mother is a dark-skinned Black woman who experienced racism. In her attempt to alert us to some of life’s harsh realities she would say: “Because you are Black, you have to work twice as hard to succeed”, or “You can’t trust nobody.” Her intentions were good, but her words only scared me. She alerted us more to the potential dangers in the world than our abilities. I was convinced that the world was not safe, life was not fair, and that I was disadvantaged because of my colour.

My Dad was different. He was a dictator. He was highly critical and he ruled with anger. He bought into the myth that ‘children should be seen and not heard’. It always seemed that whenever my sisters and I were having fun, he would storm in and ask us what we were doing. It was like our laughter bothered him. We were not allowed to be “kids”. Feeling good about yourself also seemed to be sinful because he was quick to put you in your place. He was not above intimidating or humiliating you. He never apologized for his actions even when he was wrong. He was the authority. My sisters and I feared him. When we would talk to our mother about our Dad she would say: "Your Dad was born during the war… that is his culture… it is just because he is working so hard… but your Dad is a good father because he provides."  It is true.  My Dad was born and raised in Germany in 1939, and he did provide. We lived in a nice house and there was always food on the table.
When I was 15 years old I was in a bad car accident. I was sitting in the back of a station wagon not wearing a seat belt. My sister’s boyfriend was driving when we were hit. The car spun around, the back door opened, and I was ejected. I landed on my head and my back.  I fractured my skull, sustained a brain injury, permanently lost my sense of smell, fractured my 7th vertebrae, punctured my ear drum, and had numerous cuts, bruises, lacerations etc. To this day I have no memory of the accident and very little memory of the nine days I spent in the hospital. The only day I remember more clearly is the day I left the hospital. That is when I realized that this was not just a bad dream, this really happened. I got angry. I had difficulty grasping this reality. I had a brain injury and it was believed that my ability to learn would decrease. That devastated me. Why did this happen to me, not that I wished this on anybody else, but why me? I was a good girl. People would say I was “too” nice. I cared so much about other people. I would be friends with everybody, even the outcasts. I never wanted to see people rejected by others or bullied because in a way they were part of me. I always wanted harmony I never challenged authority. I was obedient and polite. Why me? My mother would take me to the doctor frequently because of my moods and my preference to have died in the car accident. I was not suicidal really it is just that I think death would have been easier. Doctors would explain that depression is very common in people who have suffered brain injuries; the other symptoms were just written off as normal teenage angst. I was referred to some psychiatrists, but no one really seemed to get me. I floundered. A few times I did attend a brain injury support group, but I was often higher functioning than the others in the group and that was depressing. One lady tried to hit me with her crutch one time. She became agitated as I shared some of the difficulties that I was having at work. She yelled at me, “At least you can work.” That experience upset me.

I was too high functioning to access disability, and yet I was affected by my injury. I was easily overwhelmed, had trouble concentrating, had problems with my short term memory, it often took me longer to do things. I was damaged goods. How could I compete with others? Who would want me?

I remember when I met my husband. I wanted someone who was the opposite of my father and I thought I met my match. Things were great for the first several years then things started to change, especially after our son was born. The differences in our culture, our perception and expectation of our parental roles and duties and the differences in our religious beliefs increasingly became a problem. When we met we believed love would conquer all. Now he was imposing his beliefs on me. He would criticize my interests and my beliefs. He became more opinionated and less compromising. We would argue a lot. There was a lot of tension and anger. At times he got so angry he would start to shake and sweat. He looked like a man about to lose his sanity. He would threaten to commit suicide. One day he did pick up a knife and challenged me. I sought counselling from my pastor who suggested we see a marital counsellor with at least 20 years experience and to continue to pray. I did pray a lot, but nothing changed. We saw a marital counsellor and it became very clear to me that my husband and I saw things differently. My husband came from another country. He has no family here except me, our son, and my family. My family witnessed some of his actions and attitude and became increasingly less supportive and more suspicious of him. I would tell my husband what I need to make our relationship work, but he never listened. I was staying in the marriage because of my religious beliefs. Because my husband did not commit adultery or physically abandon me, divorce was not permissible. I was miserable.

One night, the potential volatility of our relationship hit me and I felt the need to warn my family. My husband’s uncontrollable rage, his threats, he did not want our relationship to end, but I did and I let him know that. What would happen to me if I leave and take our son? Despite my fear of the possible consequences, I took our son and fled to a shelter that provides temporary housing for women fleeing abusive relationships. That was a year ago.

Presently I am in Second Stage housing and my son goes to daycare. I started taking the Empowering Women Employment Program for Immigrant Women in May 2011. This course has changed my life. I have never felt better about myself and my abilities. The facilitators and the counsellors are excellent. They respect and honour you and your process. They teach you about the importance of recognizing your needs, and taking care of yourself. There are courses like R.U.O.I.A. which stands for: Recognize, Understand, and Overcome the Impacts of Abuse. This course is mandatory in the program. They teach you about understanding your emotions, like anger. Anger is not wrong. It is a normal human emotion and a natural adaptive response to threats. How you express anger is what makes the difference. There are classes in effective communication, relationship building, working with others and numerous employment related programs. There is also a course called Awareness + Action = Empowerment. I love the programs and have benefitted greatly from them. The Empowering Women’s Employment Program for Immigrant Women has had an incredible impact on me.

Soon I will get training to do volunteer work and I want to go back to school. I am planning to go to college. I am passionate about sharing knowledge to empower others. I want to communicate to promote awareness and help bring about positive social change. The majority of our society is unaware of how common and how deep the problem of violence against women is. Abuse is not just physical, or sexual. Abuse is often verbal, emotional, psychological, financial, cultural etc. and equally destructive. I have learned so much at BWSS. I have been empowered. Now I want to take what I have learned and share it with others.

Mark Benton, Q.C.
Executive Director,

Legal Services Society

400 – 510 Burrard Street

Vancouver, BC V6C 3A8

January 6, 2012

Open Letter Re: LSS Publication “Men Abused by their Partners”

Dear Mr. Benton:

We write concerning LSS’s April 2011 publication entitled “Men Abused by their Partners,” a fact sheet for heterosexual men who have allegedly experienced mistreatment or abuse by their female partners. We say ‘allegedly’ because it is very common for abusive men to blame their spouses for the troubles they are experiencing in a deteriorating relationship. As service providers we must be very aware of this reality and work to assess these situations and not be fooled by initial accusations that may be unfounded. At the core of our concerns is the potential for misinformation to empower abusers and give them fodder to continue an abusive cycle.

We look forward to a continuing dialogue about this and other LSS publications concerning issues of domestic violence and abuse. We trust that the comments contained in this letter will be helpful to the LSS in its important work of disseminating useful, relevant, and accurate legal materials.

Until recently, the “Men Abused by their Partners” fact sheet contained a number of extremely problematic statements that appeared contrary to law and liable to misapplication. Of particular concern were:

Yours truly,

cc:
Sherry MacLennan
LSS Director, Public Legal Information and Applications
Hon. Shirley Bond
Attorney General of BC, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General
David Loukidelis
Deputy Attorney General of BC

1 Jessica L. Stanley et al., “Intimate violence in male same-sex relationships” (2006) Journal of Family Violence.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-224-x/85-224-x2010000-eng.pdf>.
4 See for example Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, “Violence against Women and Girls” online: <http://criaw-icref.ca/ViolenceagainstWomenandGirls#_edn2>.
5 L. Greaves, O. Hankivsky, J. Kingston-Riechters, Selected Estimates of the Costs of Violence Against Women. (London, Ontario: Centre for Research on Violence against Women and Children, 1995).
6 For a very helpful summary of the problems with these claims, see Michael Flood, “Claims about ‘husband battering’” (Melbourne Australia: Domestic Violence and Incest Resource Centre, 1999

Fighting Sexual Assault, One Tweet at a Time

In 2011, activists harnessed the Internet to make visible everyday violence that too often goes unreported.

BY Sady Doyle

From In These Times – With Liberty and Justice for All

One of the gifts of the Internet is that it can make local or fringe stories into big, international ones.

When a history of 21st-century feminist activism is someday written, 2011 may be labeled Year Rape Broke. Sexual assault and harassment have, of course, always been key feminist concerns. But in 2011, sexual violence, exploitation, or intimidation were part of nearly every major story that fell under the heading of “women’s issues”–and the activism against it has been particularly widespread, focused and effective.

As we enter this renaissance of sexual assault awareness, it’s worth considering the ways in which new media has informed it–and, indeed, perhaps even made it possible.

The major sexual-assault headlines of the year are easy to name. The pushback to HR3, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion” act, was spurred by its redefinition of rape to include only “forcible” assaults. Journalist Lara Logan was sexually assaulted while covering the Egyptian revolution. The Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape allegations dominated the headlines for most of the summer. The once front-running Republican Presidential candidate, Herman Cain, dropped out of the race after his personal history surfaced; that history included several harassment complaints and one allegation of sexual assault.

But where there has been ugliness, there has also been substantial and effective pushback. The “Rape is Rape” campaign, started by Ms. Magazine, got the FBI to change an unreasonably narrow definition of rape that had not been touched since 1929. And the biggest feminist protest movement in years, SlutWalk–which has sparked copious press coverage everywhere from Feministing to The New York Times, and which has staged marches around the globe–was sparked by a Toronto police officer’s off-hand comment that women who didn’t want to get raped (which, one would think, is all of them) should avoid “dressing like sluts.”

Rape has become central to the feminist discourse again in 2011, much as the question of whether we could have a female president became central again in 2008. While there are several compelling arguments as for how this happened–for one, this was simply a year in which an unusually large number of high-powered men were accused of sexual misconduct or violence–one of them often goes unnoticed and uncredited. That is to say, feminists may simply be more aware of misogyny and sexual violence because it is more easily visible online.

Much of the especially virulent misogyny online is produced by self-anointed “men’s rights activists,” or MRAs. Writer David Futrelle started his blog Manboobz in September 2010 to monitor and mock them.

“At the time, I actually didn’t realize just how misogynistic these guys were,” Futrelle told me in an e-mail. “I found myself reading blog posts on how women didn’t deserve the right to vote, how the solution to domestic violence is for men to hit women harder than women hit them, how men built civilization while women sat on their lazy asses. It was, not to get too hokey about it, a sort of voyage of discovery for me.”

It’s also a voyage of discovery for his readers, who are able to actually see the different forms that virulent misogyny can take–from claiming that Lara Logan lied about her assault to giving tips on how to pay homeless women for sex. Futrelle’s dissection of these unappetizing blog posts is a public service: It’s hard to claim that we live in a post-sexist society when visible examples of blatant sexism are being pointed out on a daily basis.

This is one of the gifts of the Internet: It can make local or fringe stories into big, international ones. Whereas someone looking to educate herself about rape in 1991 would have to rely on books, and whatever made the local or national papers, someone looking for the same information in 2011 can simply enter “rape” into Google news, and see fresh rape statistics the unfolding rape case of a University of Oklahoma professor, and several discussions of the rape scenes in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” among many other stories.

Feminists who hope to raise awareness of sexual violence, in turn, can pull from these stories when educating themselves or making their arguments. On my own Twitter and Facebook feeds, I can see several stories that look small but which actually serve to demonstrate both the pervasiveness of sexual violence, and the existence of resistance to it: The college blog network Campus Basement posts an article “jokingly” giving a list of instructions for date rape, and it is taken down almost immediately due to feminist pushback. After the hashtag #itaintrapeif trends worldwide it’s covered by Jezebel, the counter-hashtag #RapeIsNotAJoke is formed, and it’s drowned out in protest by the end of the day. The existence of misogyny online can, indeed, pose an actual threat to female or feminist bloggers, as I have noted. But, if recent history has anything to say about it, feminists online are forming a variety of very effective strategies to counter it when necessary.

Activists can also harness the Internet to make visible the sorts of everyday violence that all too often go unreported. Emily May’s Hollaback! is an organization aimed at ending street harassment, which allows women to upload phone camera shots or accounts of street harassment to specific city-based websites, thereby creating a highly visible record of how common and extreme it can be.

“Social media is best at storytelling, and storytelling is what catalyzes social change,” May told me. “Now we don’t have to wait for the media to pay attention to our stories, we can tell our stories to over 1,000 people within minutes… I think social media is going to allow our generation to take on day to day discrimination in a big way by shifting our experiences from isolating to sharable.”

It’s not only the experiences of oppression or sexual violence that have become sharable: It’s the precise shape of the attitude that allows and creates those experiences, as in the case of #itaintrapeif, which was nothing if not a public archive of pro-sexual assault sentiments. Despite the undeniable headache induced by having to see the stuff in one’s Twitter feed, this may be a strange blessing. This generation is fighting against sexual assault harder than ever–and that is at least in part because they have more information than ever about what it is they have to fight.

ABOUT THIS AUTHOR

Sady Doyle is an In These Times Staff Writer. She’s also an award-winning social media activist and the founder of the anti-sexist blog Tiger Beatdown (tigerbeatdown.com).

What is Sexual Harassment

Source: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/pdf/whatissh.pdf

What?

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favours, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when:

• Submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of a woman’s employment, or
• Submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as a basis for employment decisions affecting such woman or
• Such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an woman’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.

Unwelcome behaviour is the critical word. Unwelcome does not mean "involuntary." A woman may consent or agree to certain conduct and actively participate in it even though it is offensive and objectionable. Therefore, sexual conduct is unwelcome whenever the person subjected to it considers it unwelcome. Whether the person in fact welcomed a request for a date, sex-oriented comment, or joke depends on all the circumstances.

Sexual harassment includes many things…

·  Actual or attempted rape or sexual assault.
·  Unwanted pressure for sexual favours.
·  Unwanted deliberate touching, leaning over, cornering, or pinching.
·  Unwanted sexual looks or gestures.
·  Unwanted letters, telephone calls, or materials of a sexual nature.
·  Unwanted pressure for dates.
·  Unwanted sexual teasing, jokes, remarks, or questions.
·  Referring to an adult as a girl, hunk, doll, babe, or honey.
·  Whistling at someone.
·  Cat calls.
·  Sexual comments.
·  Turning work discussions to sexual topics.
·  Sexual innuendos or stories.
·  Asking about sexual fantasies, preferences, or history.
·  Personal questions about social or sexual life.
·  Sexual comments about a person’s clothing, anatomy, or looks.
·  Kissing sounds, howling, and smacking lips.
·  Telling lies or spreading rumours about a person’s personal sex life.
·  Neck massage.
·  Touching an employee’s clothing, hair, or body.
·  Giving personal gifts.
·  Hanging around a person.
·  Hugging, kissing, patting, or stroking.
·  Touching or rubbing oneself sexually around another person.
·  Standing close or brushing up against a person.
·  Looking a person up and down (elevator eyes).
·  Staring at someone.
·  Sexually suggestive signals.
·  Facial expressions, winking, throwing kisses, or licking lips.
·  Making sexual gestures with hands or through body movements.

The impact of sexual harassment varies from person to person and is dependent on the duration and severity of the harassing behaviour. The impact of sexual harassment on the person being harassed is often much greater than one may think. It can impact a person physically, emotionally, economically and socially and affect one’s career and academic performance or potential.

Some of the potential effects are:

• Anxiety, frustration, depression, sleeplessness and/or nightmares, difficulty concentrating, headaches, fatigue, shame and or guilt, feeling powerless, helpless or out of control, feeling angry towards the harasser, loss of confidence and self-esteem, withdrawal and isolation, suicidal thoughts or attempts
• Retaliation from the harasser, or colleagues/friends of the harasser, should the woman complain or file a grievance (retaliation can involve revenge along with more sexual harassment, and can involve stalking the complainant)
• Having to drop courses, or change academic plans; it may impact grade performance
• Increased absenteeism to avoid harassment, or because of illness from the stress
• Having one’s personal life held up for public scrutiny – the victim becomes the “accused,” and their dress, lifestyle, and private life will often come under attack.  (Note:  this rarely occurs for the perpetrator.)
• Being objectified and humiliated by scrutiny and gossip
• Becoming publicly sexualized
• Defamation of character and reputation
• Stress impacting relationships with significant others, sometimes resulting in the demise of the relationship; equally, stress on peer relationships and relationships with colleagues
• Impact on references/recommendations
• Loss of career – threatened or actual
• Feeling unsafe to leave one’s home and/or enter work/school where the harassment took place
• Physically and emotionally withdraw from friends, family, and coworkers
• Difficulty interacting with others
• Alcohol or drug use/misuse
• Change in appetite 
• Stomach aliments
• Threatened or actual loss of income/benefits/promotions/opportunities

 1-855-687-1868

Intake and Crisis Line

Emotional support, information, referral, legal advocacy