A Gendered Mental Health?

Tags

feminism, gender stereotypes, gun control, medicine, mental-health, patriarchy

In connection with the Newtown tragedy, there has been much talk in the past week about the need for mental health services. There doesn’t seem to be a lot, so far, about what that means or how that looks. It’s pretty obvious to most people that people like the gunman Adam Lanza, are not mentally and emotionally stable. But what hasn’t really been talked about is that Adam and the killers in the other major public shootings this year, have been men. There are of course other killings that have been committed by women, but a majority of killings in this country, if not worldwide, are carried out by men. And yet there is still a societal taboo against men getting help.

When there is talk about the need for mental health services, all I can think is that even if there are services available, there is still that stigma against men taking advantage of those services. Stereotypically, men are supposed to be brave and strong. They are supposed to be able to take down the monsters, not be plagued by them internally. They are supposed to fight back and to walk off pain. But what if they can’t?

I think we’ve seen the answer to that question.

We get the Newtown massacre. Or the movie theater one. Or the mall. Or the temple. Or domestic violence murders. Or any number of violent crimes.

It is not merely that we as a country must provide accessible mental health services, but that we change our views of who should go to therapy, of who should get help, of when that help should occur. It means we change our belief about men not needing help.

The system of patriarchy says men are on top. They are in charge. They are all knowing. They can handle anything thrown at them. They are the heroes, the ones who will save everyone else (women, children, animals, property). And Geez- That’s a lot of pressure!

The reality is men are human. For the society to allow men to get help, we must acknowledge they are human and that sometimes life is hard for everyone. Men must understand that getting help isn’t a failure. Society has to back them up in understanding that. It’s not a disgrace to go to therapy. It’s not weak. It’s an exploration of the self in this world.

We should be curious about our thoughts, about our feelings, about our plans, about our dreams, and about our lives. All of this is mental health. Can you share all of that with someone else? Can you trust someone else enough to explore that stuff with them?

If there is something you are up to that you can’t share with a therapist, maybe you should go talk to one. Would Adam Lanza have been able to talk about his plan with a therapist? Probably not- and he might not have, but if he had been seeing someone regularly, who was on his side, helping him through the hard time he was having, this tragedy would have hopefully been avoided.

This isn’t to say every tragedy is avoidable, but receiving mental health services can help prevent some. Having it be a normal thing for people to check out their mental health can prevent tragedy. If our body hurts we get it checked out. What if our mind or our feelings, our selves hurt? We also need to check that out.

In order for people to be able to get help, we need for that to be normal in the society. That means we all need to check in about our mental health, our emotional health. What does that mean? Talk to a therapist, a counselor, trustworthy religious personnel- when you are having a hard time. When you feel sad. When you are confused. When you are angry. Encourage others to get help. Talk about when you needed to do that.

The internet is a great place to find therapists and therapeutic programs BTW

I have a friend whose father died a few years back. I asked him if he saw a therapist. He told me no, he just drank a lot. If you have to cope with something with alcohol or drugs, you’re not coping well. Talk to someone. We all must do this more. It needs to be the norm, otherwise it will still be taboo for men. And let’s face it, men also need help. We all do from time to time.

Make it acceptable! Make it important! Make it the norm!

Healthy mental states for all!

Let Me Thank You!

Tags

feminism, patriarchy, thankfulness, Thanks-taking, Thanksgiving

I want to use this opportunity to give thanks, so I hate to preface it with anything. I will, however, in order to recognize that while today is a day celebrated by many across America as Thanksgiving, a day to give thanks, and to remember what we are thankful for, for many others, it’s a day that celebrates the colonization and genocide of Native Americans. Some have renamed it Thanks-taking, as in, thanks for taking what wasn’t yours.

Keeping these dichotomies of giving and taking in mind, I want to say thank you to everyone in the fight against oppression. Thank you for working to make change.

Thank you to you all for reading my blog over this past year and a few months.

Thank you to all who work actively to combat sexism.

Thank you to all who work toward gender equality.

Thank you to all who, in daily interactions, counter all forms of oppression.

Thank you to all who work for justice and equality of all people in our society.

Thank you to all who speak out against sexual violence, including street harassment, rape, and childhood sexual abuse.

Thank you to all who speak out against intimate partner violence and domestic violence.

Thank you to all who speak out against and work to eradicate all gender based violence.

Thank you to all who stand for human rights.

Thank you to all who stand for equal rights among all people.

Thank you to all who stand for equal rights for people who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer.

Thank you to all who stand for women’s right to make their own decisions for their bodies and lives.

Thank you to all who fight against patriarchy.

Thank you to all who stand for the right for all of us to have healthcare.

Thank you for remembering this nation was built on the deaths of many and from the enslavement of many. Remembering, we are less likely to repeat our history.

There are so many reasons to give thanks. What are yours?

Thanks!

 

Weekend Thoughts on Love, Life and the War On Women

Tags

feminism, GOP, patriarchy, political reflections, sexism, war on women, women's rights

Life is too large to be summed up in a saying, a novel, a hug, a political war. 

I am inside of this life, shimmying up the rib cage, pulsing through heart beats. Laughing bare chested on mountaintops, wading in turtle water toward the fountain of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

This is my life. 

But our lives share this space and I don’t need to look to the dark shadows to hide who I am. I wouldn’t ask that of anyone. This is an up front movement. It is a call for truth. For equality. For respect.

If I could invite each person who disagrees with me about the War On Women to sit at my kitchen table and talk over tea, we might get somewhere.

But even with Mapquest, so many of my proposed guests would be lost trying to find the table, they wouldn’t entertain the invitation.

There are different levels of importance in this world, in this life. I hold them to assess their weight.

In one hand I hold the War On Women. This political porridge slopped into our troughs.

In the other, I hold a level that is my family member dying. My sister feeling like an orphan. My baby growing out of being a baby and into being a child. This is right now, for me. But these things change with the moment, with the day, with the month.

This political fight stays. It is the long path we did not choose. Mastermined to enslave us one day at a time, even as our resistance grows.

The War On Women is my fight, it is the fight of many. Ultimately it must be the fight of the majority. As a woman, I risk my life if I do not stand up against it, though I know it will go on longer than me. I know it is bigger than just me and hope others will see the injuries its weapons incur and say “No more.”

Many things are more important than this political infighting. They tug on emotions and values and repeat the word, LOVE over and over again. But, if this War On Women continues its course, I won’t have rights to be who I am. Other people won’t have rights to be who they are. All women will be in more danger of violence being perpetrated against them.

What about this love? What about holding on to who and what you love while you are here? Making it worth it? Enjoying it fully? 

Life is about being free to fully enjoy life and make of it what you can, what you will.

What about loving myself for who I am?

What about loving women?

What about loving one another enough to respect everyone?

If the GOP continues to take my rights, will I be free to live, to love, to be?

The answer is No. They have already taken rights from more than half of the population. Including me. They have made it clear women will not be valued, all the while calling us crazy.

This life is a juggling of the battles we want to fight and the battles we must fight. It is a juggling between the tears we cry and those we hold back. It is a fight for laughter and joy and love. It is a fight for life. 

Stupid are those who say it is not a war.

Levels of importance.

Love. Equality. Justice. Freedom.

Feminist Resistance

Tags

feminism, patriarchy, rape culture, Unite Against the War On Women, war on women, women's rights

“What a feminist is- is a humanist in a sexist culture.” This is what the minister at the rally in Austin said last Saturday. I wish I knew his name.

His statement is absolutely correct. Feminists are asking for human rights for women. If the culture didn’t have institutionally built in structures against women and ways of seeing women as inferior, if laws protected women and viewed us as equal, there would be no need for feminism. If the culture wasn’t sexist, feminists would be humanists.

As a feminist, I want a balanced world where all women are afforded the same rights, legal protection, an equal level of participation in the society as men, and where work that women have traditionally done is valued.

I have been thinking about his statement since he said it. I have also had the word “Resistance” in mind.

Resistance can mean many things, including violent overthrow. I am not suggesting anything violent. The resistance I speak of is about stopping the Republican party from institutionally taking rights away from women by:
1. passing laws that take those rights
and
2. by pushing legislation to take away laws that protect women.

When women’s rights to make decisions for their bodies and selves are taken away, women are seen as inferior and therefore at greater risk for violence.

When women are being institutionally oppressed in a way that increases violence against them, (violence that includes physical beating, emotional and psychological torture, rape and all sexual assault, and murder) it is war. 

The resistance to the War On Women must continue. It must be more organized and it needs to grow because while the GOP is laughing at women for saying there is a “War on Women,” they continue to pass laws that attack women.

Think on Resistance.

Resistance to laws that take away women’s right to make choices for their bodies.

Resistance to women being framed as “sluts” and “prostitutes” for wanting access to birth control.

Resistance to the government making decisions about women’s bodies and wellbeing.

Resistance to women’s concerns being brushed off as ridiculous, hysterical, stupid.

Resistance to oppression of women being put into law and/or reinforced by law.

Resistance to women being put down, objectified, sexualized, belittled.

Resistance to the government allowing for women to be paid less.

Resistance to people who say there is no wage gap.

Resistance to laws and any unofficial cultural belief setting that implies women are second class citizens, inferior, less than.

Resistance to anything within the society that suggests women are not equals.

Resistance to people who want to say feminists hate men, are absurd, want to be men, are nazis.

Resistance to cultural acceptance of women as “blonde” (meaning stupid), likened to animals of any kind (cows, cats, pandas, dogs,…), hysterical (War on Caterpillars).

Resistance to women being blamed for violence against them.

Resistance to notions that women cannot make decisions about their bodies and lives.

Resistance to extreme gender stereotypes that close all people off from the range of options, rights, and responsibilities that should be afforded to us.

Resistance to hatred and oppression of people because of gender, gender identity, skin color, sexual orientation, ability, ethnicity, language, culture. Recognizing these pieces of identity intersect.

Resistance to ignorance about the importance of women’s equality.

Resistance to the belief that women have no voice and don’t need to have a voice in public matters.

Resistance to the belief that inequality doesn’t lead to violence- It does.

Grrl Code: Resistance to the false belief that women can’t get along, unite, work together, be strong, fight for our equality. 

MARCH Against The War On Women

Tags

A, feminism, Gender oppression, March Against War On Women, patriarchy, pro-choice, war on women

This is the Weekender. I first wrote on the March/Rally/Protests around the nation against the War On Women. I have since added a few pictures of the rally in Austin, Texas. Please tune in Monday for more pictures of Austin’s rally and a post about the rally. Here are the pics to get started with. If you can’t tell by the crowd- it was a success.

Austin, Texas Rally Against the War On Women 4/28/12 (note- the grass here was off limits, which pushed the huge crowd around the capital bldg)

STOP the War On Women 4/28/12

4/28/12 Austin, Texas

Today is April 28, 2012- the day of the March Against the War on Women throughout the USA. Marches will take place all over the country protesting the war that Republicans are still saying is nonsense manufactured by the Democratic party. Oh if that were true.

The fact is that in the first three months of 2012, legislators in 45 of the 46 legislatures that have convened this year introduced 944 provisions related to reproductive health and rights. Half of these provisions would restrict abortion access.

Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin just signed legislation repealing the state’s comprehensive sex education law and establishing abstinence education requirements. He also signed legislation to restrict abortion rights in health care exchanges and require doctors to “investigate women” seeking abortions to be sure they aren’t being “coerced.” He also signed a bill to nullify enforcement of the federal Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay for Women Act. Rep. Glenn Grothman was right there to say “money is more important for men.”

And that’s just Wisconsin. States all over the country are restricting women’s healthcare and our legal right to make decisions for our bodies and for ourselves.

Florida’s governor just took away tons of money from Rape Crisis Centers.

Georgia Republican state legislator Bobby Franklin is pushing to redefine rape victims as accusers rather than victims. Rapes are underreported as it is, this just places another barrier to people reporting and makes it sound like the victim is lying. Most rape victims are women.

There are so many more examples. For more information about the War On Women please click the following links:

1. Matrifocal Point- The War On Women- Is it Real?

2. Huffington post list

2. Move-On list

Just to run down this whole schema again-

When women have their rights taken away, they are seen as less than. 

When they are seen as less than, they are dehumanized. A great example of this is Rush Limbaugh calling women sluts for wanting access to contraception. Then following it up by insinuating women are for men’s sexual pleasure when he told Sandra Fluke to send him her sex tape.

When women are dehumanized, they are at greater risk for violence.

When more women are seen as inferior, beaten, raped, and killed- THIS IS A WAR!

Protest it. March against it. Show your face to be counted among those who understand it’s real and are concerned that if it continues, women will have no rights.

Check out what your neck of the woods is doing and get in on the game! It’s not too late for today and the war will unfortunately continue even though people are wise to it, so stand up for women, for gender equality, for a just world.

Here’s the site to check out: We Are Women- March

Grrl Code: Get involved. Attend a march near you- bring friends- women or men. Talk to people you know about why the War On Women is dangerous for all women and furthers the gap of inequality between men and women. Believe, support, and speak out for women- now is the time.

Sandra Fluke Isn’t a Lesbian- Why She’s Being Called One

Tags

advocating for women, contraception, homophobia, Monica Crowley tweet, patriarchy, Sandra Fluke engagement

Rather than “Congratulations” on the engagement, the news that Sandra Fluke is going to get married is now the latest controversy. It’s not a huge one like last time, but nonetheless, a controversy.

And the down and dirty happened in 140 characters or less- that’s right, over Twitter.

So Sandra Fluke announced her engagement. Monica Crowley then asks: “To a man?”

I would think, as Sandra Fluke said, first Crowley might have said “Congrats,” and then maybe followed with: “Who’s the lucky person?” or something like that.

Crowley said that it at first was a legit question and then followed that she was also trying to make a joke.

It’s that old trick of using homophobia to make a joke that is done so often in TV sitcoms and movies that it makes homophobia normal and reinforces it as part of the culture. Sitcoms simultaneously have scenarios the audience will laugh at, often making it seem like two men the audience knows to be heterosexual are in a gay relationship or someone thinks someone else is gay and that person is indignant saying they are not, but then add, “not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Might as well say: “homosexuality is out there, and we’re okay with it, as long as we can laugh at you.” It’s the bind of: “See, we include you in TV land, even though it’s to laugh AT you.”

So here’s a joke implying that Sandra Fluke being with a man is hilarious because she was speaking out for women.

Now, interestingly, I read or heard from some news source when she was called a “slut” by Rush Limbaugh, that she was a lesbian and would never use the birth control she advocated for. I read a lot of Internet information, both news and garbage, so who knows who said it?

I do remember thinking it was interesting, but also that contraception is an option for women and one we need to have out there to be able to make decisions for our bodies. She fought for it. Awesome! That she was a lesbian, so what?

Now, come to find out, she is getting married and yes, Monica Crowley, to a man.

Why would someone say Fluke is a lesbian? This is the homophobic part. They said it to insult her, because being gay is still seen as an insult in our society.

But even more than that- being seen as a lesbian is also an insult within the grand schema of Patriarchy, so her being a lesbian means that ‘no man would want her so she has to go be with a woman.’ Oh the poor dear.

Our society still measures a woman’s worth based on whether or not she can find a husband and it is presumed that women who speak out, advocate for their rights, and are feminist, are not “marriage material.”

So, to be fair to people like me who thought maybe Sandra Fluke was a lesbian, there were rumors that she was. But for Monica Crowley, even if she thought that, why would she respond in the tweet how she did? Seems like it was to make a joke with the LGBT community at the butt of it.

Unfortunately, what it also does is reinforce that idea that women who stand up for themselves, women that stand up for women, women who are feminist are all gay because they hate men. Or maybe they don’t hate men, but they wouldn’t want to marry one. Obviously, this isn’t true.

What if Monica Crowley knew Sandra Fluke was straight or had a boyfriend? She may have. I think I also heard she had a boyfriend, but I don’t remember who said what. Her having a boyfriend, we would probably assume she has a monogamous relationship with, negates her being a “slut.” So maybe that was put out there or maybe it wasn’t. At this point, I remember her speaking about women needing access to contraception because of health issues. I remember thinking “Heck Yeah! We need an articulate woman speaking about contraception, women’s health care, women’s rights and women’s choice and she is doing just that.”

What Crowley’s tweet suggests to women who are more concerned than Sandra about being called a lesbian is this: women who speak out against the system that works to oppress women, will be called names: Slut, Lesbian, Prostitute.

Most people don’t want to be the sacrifice for the whole. Most don’t want to have their name and picture all over the media or to have this new subject for table conversation at holiday meals. Backlash against Sandra Fluke has been hateful and calculated. It is meant to not only shut her up, but all to shut up all women. 

Grrl Code: Continue to speak up for women. Continue to support other women who speak up and let women like Monica Crowley know that Sandra Fluke is fighting for her rights too.

Congratulations Sandra Fluke!

5 Ways The Patriarchy Hurts Men Too

Tags

feminism, gender, how men are hurt by Patriarchy, oppression, patriarchy

This post is by Randi Saunders, who is the primary author of The Radical Idea blog. It was posted on The Radical Idea and with Randi’s permission is being REBLOGGed here on Matrifocal Point. Enjoy!

5 Ways The Patriarchy Hurts Men Too

Guys, I promise, the next post won’t be a list like this. I know it’s becoming a pattern.  I swear, the next post will be in normal rambling paragraph form.

But lists are nice, and they’re neat, and right now, I think this is a list of issues people don’t think about enough.  When people say that feminism is just about women, they overlook the fact that men are, in fact, also harmed by the very system that feminists are trying to combat; that the same prejudices and underlying issues that hurt women can, in some cases, hurt men as well.  These are five examples of how the Patriarchy ALSO hurts men:

Male Victims of Domestic Violence are often not taken seriously either by the courts or by society itself.  This is a fairly serious problem, because it means that a lot of victims are potentially falling through the cracks.  This in turn reduces the likelihood that domestic violence against men will be reported, because men don’t want to be emasculated on the basis of being a victim.  It’s not considered “manly” to be a victim.

Male Victims of Sexual Assault experience the same sort of problems that male victims of domestic violence do: people don’t necessarily take them seriously and society tells them that men are not men if they are sexually assaulted.  This is also a big problem, because they are also unlikely to report instances of rape or sexual abuses, resulting in ongoing psychological harm and a lack of justice for the victims.  On top of that, the original definitions of rape did not even RECOGNIZE that men could be raped-~-it’s only the modified and updated versions of rape law that acknowledge that male rape victims even exist.

Fathers During Custody Hearings are less likely to acquire custody of their children.  Courts presume that the mother is the more suitable caretaker because the Patriarchy perpetuates the gender binary in such a way that masculinity becomes divorced from the concepts of care and nurture, while femininity becomes inherently tied to this.  This also harms male children who may be better off with their father than their mother but are given to their mother based on this rigid gender divide.

Gay Men can also be harmed by the Patriarchy.  As I discovered when I was doing my research on social networks and identity formation, the concept of gender correlates strongly with expectations of sexuality.  Because of this, societies often emasculate gay men, based either on their sexual activities alone or based on preconceived notions of homosexuality.  This in turn helps to perpetuate violence against homosexuals in many instances, and is used to justify other related prejudices.  The harm is even greater in societies in which hypermasculinity is a problem, because it forces gay men to either behave in a hypermasculinized way that is also hypersexualized and heternormative, or suffer the consequences of deviating from this gender expectation (we see this, for example, in Mexico where machismo is a prominent social feature)

Men in General because the Patriarchy helps to promote a gender binary that categorizes displays of emotion as particularly feminine.  This often results in a lack of or at least limited emotional literacy among men, and places men who DO show emotion in an uncomfortable position wherein their behavior is read as “unmanly”.  Because of this constant suppression of emotion men often have problems rooted in miscommunication (especially with women).  On top of this, studies have shown that most decision-making is rooted in emotion; but the ability to express the decision-making process often presents a challenge to men who lack this emotional literacy due to the norms imposed by the current gender binary.

There are other examples of this, of course.  Men who are gender-nonconforming, transsexuals, etc. are also harmed by the Patriarchy.  For everyone who wants to say that feminism is JUST about women, it’s not.  When women are considered equal to men, and the behaviors and traits associated with women (however accurately or inaccurately) are respected the way traits associated with men are, these harms can potentially be diminished.  The Patriarchy is not just hurting those of us with uteri-~-it’s hurting everyone.

Thank you Randi Saunders and The Radical Idea.

Letter to White Men

Tags

#men, feminism, men's rights, patriarchy, war on women, white male privilege

Dear White Men,

This letter isn’t a bashing. It’s not a letter to make you feel guilty or bad. It’s to express some of my concerns and thoughts and maybe to provide some enlightenment about a couple of crazy things about privilege. It is also to ask for your help if you aren’t helping already.

First of all, to let you know, I am a white woman. My father is white. As is my grandfather who is still alive and the one who has now passed on. I have guy friends who are white and who I love.

As is obvious, most politicians in this country and most CEOs are white men. They have been speaking out recently in ways that have been disturbing to many women and enacting laws that seem to want to put women backwards.

White men in Wisconsin just overturned a law that allowed for the wage gap between men and women to shrink. A white man, Wisconsin State Senator Glenn Grothman said he doesn’t believe there is a wage gap and that money is more important to men than it is to women. What about single moms or families where the woman is the main breadwinner or how about it’s not fair or just?

All across the nation white men have passed laws that keep women from being able to make decisions for their bodies- this is dangerous when thinking about the many decisions about our bodies we need to be able to make- like what we wear, whether we take medication, whether we have sex or not (rape), whether we are burned with acid, whether we are sold into marriage or sex slavery, and whether we choose to have an abortion or not.

To take our choices away from us dehumanizes us and puts us at greater risk for violence. White men also defunded the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which means women are at increasingly greater risk for violence in this society that does not see them as equal and there may not be services enough to help women in the aftermath from that violence.

So, there’s some real craziness going on. It may not look like the Iraq war or Vietnam. It’s a different kind of battle- as all warfare changes. WWII was fought very differently than the Iraq war. Those wars were/are fought very differently than the War On Women. When the laws white men are setting into place lead to more violence, like battering, rape, and murder of women, it’s a war. It could also be argued that this violence against women are strategic tactics of the war.

I’ve been reading a mixture of things from white men lately, comments on blogs, blogs, articles, tweets, Facebook pages… Many white men are upset with what they see in the world right now and are fighting it, standing beside women as allies. Some are completely against the battles women are taking on for their rights and are acting very angry about it. Others see the response to the War On Women as man-bashing. And still others completely deny they have any privilege as white men in this country and world or that women are oppressed.

I want to say something very clearly: There is a system set up that puts you (white men) at the very top. It’s kind of like a pyramid. Everyone below the white man must work to keep the white man on top. Even if individual people don’t believe that, ultimately the system keeps white men in power.

This isn’t your fault. It’s the system’s fault. It gives you privilege even though you didn’t do anything to earn it. And because it’s set up to keep you on top, everything in the system revolves around doing just that. It is so institutionalized and ingrained in everything, that it would be easy for you to ignore and not even see it- that’s the privilege. You are reflected in most all media, the laws and salaries favor you, and you have the power.

If you argue that you are a white man but are poor: that may be the case, but someone gives you a suit jacket and you clean up just like any white man. A man of color puts on a suit jacket. He may have a lot of money, but still he is seen as a man of color and because of the system, less than you. Women are also below you in the triangle, be they white women or women of color. Women of color have even greater discrimination against them than white women- they are discriminated against for being women and also for being people of color. Those two intersectionalities are inseparable.

I know you didn’t ask for this privilege, but with it, you have a greater ability to make change. And understanding your position of privilege, you have a responsibility to work toward change.

I’m writing this specifically to white men for several reasons. One, because the men of color I know have expressed understanding about women’s concerns right now. This certainly does not mean that all men of color get it- they don’t, but the ones I know and the ones who have been writing the comments I have been reading seem to understand somehow overall more than white men.

White men are tired of being pointed at for being bad. Again, not all white men are bad. The system in place is bad and there are a lot of white men right now who are afraid of sharing that power and are fighting to keep the power the system affords them.

The second reason is again, as white men, you have been given the most privilege in the society and therefore have the most power to change things- that’s not to say all the rest of us aren’t going to work on it too, it’s to say- please work on making change for women, for people of color, for equality, for us to have a better nation and a better world.

Thank you for your consideration of this letter. Happy Friday.

Sincerely,

Liza Wolff-Francis

On the Eve of Misogyny’s Backlash, there was Eve

Tags

Eve Ensler, feminism, patriarchy, Sexual Assault Awareness Month, war on women

Eve Ensler is someone who has changed the world. She is a Maker and when you see all she has done, you get why. 

I wanted to write about her because she has done so much to raise awareness about sexual violence and April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
I wanted to write about her because she raises awareness about women’s status in the world using her art.
I wanted to write about her because she is an artist who is also very clearly an activist.
I wanted to write about her because she has changed the lives of many people and has made significant impact on the world at large.
I wanted to write about her because her voice has been necessary in the fight against Patriarchy.

CNN wrote an article a week or so ago that quoted her as saying: “The vagina has become so real, so present, so powerful that people are going after it directly. It’s evidence that we’re winning.”

That’s a statement I haven’t wanted to let go of. These days, there’s so much backlash and so much fight against women, by Republicans in particular, that I need that statement. It’s like carrying around a grain of hope when you see all the crazy things going that leave women less than and in a vulnerable place in the face of violence.

Abuse, rape, harassment, inequality, and sexism/misogyny has put and continues to put shame on women about having vaginas, about being women. Eve Ensler has created a movement within feminism that takes the shame away.

She is best known for the Vagina Monologues, which is how I first heard about her. In 2000, I was a volunteer advocate and advocate liaison to the board for the Santa Fe Rape Crisis Center. The Vagina Monologues were put on as a fundraiser for the Center. I read them and then to see them performed was even more powerful. They came to life in a different way.

Women originally told their stories to Eve, a woman. She listened and collected those stories. People all over were reading them in book form. Women were performing them and people were listening to them and taking them in. It was so many layers of truth, of identifying, of emotion. It was the voices of women come to life in a different way than had been seen or heard before.

When I told my partner/husband I was writing this post on her, he said, ‘”Oh write in there that I found “The Vagina Monologues” at a bookstore and I bought the book and read them all. Write that I was fascinated in them as a work of the theater that was empowering to women and because it used the world vagina and wasn’t porn. Well, maybe don’t say the porn part.”‘

Too late. I’m saying that part because it’s important. The Monologues have been important, moving and earth-shattering for many people. Eve put the vagina front and center without objectifying women, without women or the vagina being sexualized. That hadn’t been been done in that way before.

“I think if you tell the story of your vagina, you tell the story of your life in some fundamental way,” she says on her Makers video.

A question to think on: How does what has happened to women via their vaginas affect how women relate with the world and how the world in turn relates with women?

By encouraging women to speak about their vaginas and how women move through the world because of what has happened to them, she has empowered women all over the globe to stand up for themselves.

If you think “The Vagina Monologues” is old hat by now, that it’s been going on for years, or enough already about the vagina- realize that this was revolutionary. It still is revolutionary.

Women speak out about how they have been hurt, objectified, and raped. Women speak about sexual pleasure and pain. These are taboo subjects. They are words and stories that say women can and must have control over their bodies.

Sixteen years after it was first out there, The Vagina Monologues are still being performed. Those performances have raised $85 million dollars to fight domestic violence and rape. Amazing. But, that’s not all.

Eve Ensler has been at the forefront of modern day feminism and has won numerous awards for her anti-violence against women work as well as for her work as a playwright and writer. Through art activism, she has brought global awareness about sexual violence and women’s many different experiences living in a world that is unfairly biased toward men and oppressive toward women.

She started V-day, which is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls that generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM), and sex slavery.

I don’t want to attempt to rewrite her Curriculum Vita, but I want to note a couple of the many works of hers.

She has been in several films and has toured her plays. “The Good Body,” a play that addresses why women of many cultures and backgrounds perceive pressure to change the way they look in order to be accepted in the eyes of society. “The Treatment,” is a play about how engaging in military conflict can cause moral and psychological trauma.

In 2006, Eve released a political memoir, “Insecure At Last.” She also co-edited “A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and a Prayer,” an anthology of writings about violence against women. She stood up to say the Mexican government should further investigate the femicide in Juarez. She worked with the women of Afghanistan to create programs addressing their needs. She continues to work with women in prison helping them write their stories.

Eve’s most recent book, “I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life Of Girls Around The World,” was released February 2010.

Also around that time- 2010, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer and beat it. She wrote the most amazing speech about being diagnosed with cancer, the relation to the women in the Democratic Republic of Congo, chemo, and how the cancer is now gone. She gave it as a speech. It is poetry. Take a few minutes to read it. Seriously it is so beautifully written. With all there is to read in the world and all that we read, some of it could be missed. This is not one of those things anyone should miss. Read it: The Gift of Cancer

Eve Ensler has given me hope about the incessant backlash and hatred against women today not just by saying, “We are winning,” but by encouraging women to speak about their most intimate moments, about moments that perpetrators and misogynists intended them to shut up about, and by the movement her work has stirred all over the world. Her impact has been immeasurable and unforgettable.

From my vagina, from my person, from me as a woman- I want to thank Eve Ensler for her work and the path life has made for her. The world is better for women everywhere because of it.

There is a War On Women and it’s far from over, but YES, we are winning.

The War On Women- Is It Real?

Tags

contraception, feminism, patriarchy, personhood, war on women

Right now Conservatives, many of them women, are saying “liberals” are making up a War on Women. They warn people not to believe the hype. The War On Women refers to many issues affecting whether women have equal status in the world to men. Right now it is focused on the healthcare rights of women that are being taken away. But is it really a war on women?

Let’s see. To note, The War on Women isn’t a new war and women who are concerned with women’s rights have been using these words for years. Recently though, things have taken a new turn that includes the following:

1. Women seeking abortions are required to have vaginal ultrasounds before the procedure, when ultrasounds are not medically necessary. It is then required that the women are shown the ultrasound pictures and have them described to them. These are requirements even if the women don’t want to see the ultrasound images or hear the description- and of course, most don’t. But, in many states (Texas included, which is where I live), she is forced by the law to get the ultrasound, look at the results and hear about them if she wants an abortion.

It’s a form of medical blackmail and essentially, it is rape. As a form of unwanted sexual contact, which unwanted vaginal penetration is, it not only requires medical personnel to be perpetrators, but it also forces women who have made a choice about their bodies to be sexually assaulted.

2. The “personhood” bill, which says people are people upon conception, which doesn’t really make sense, but frames the debate about when a person is a person. It’s interesting because a conception is an idea, so I thought I wanted a baby and pooof I had a full person. It was years ago when I first thought I wanted a baby, so really, my toddler is twenty something. Yikes.

But if they’re talking about when a couple has sex, it actually may be days before the egg and sperm turn into a fetus, if it turns into one. And if they are speaking about when an egg and a sperm first hook up, it’s still extreme, considering that if the mother’s body wasn’t around, a one day old fetus hasn’t a chance in the world. Not to be crass, but it’s a parasite that may or may not make it to being a baby.

The so called “personhood” amendment gives more rights to an unborn fetus than to women. It is a way to shift the nation’s view on abortion and whether women should be able to make choices for their bodies.

3. Then there’s the contraception issue with Sandra Fluke being called a slut by Limbaugh and the framing of women who want access to contraception, whether for birth control or other medical reasons, as sluts and prostitutes. That tipped over into the belief of Patriarchy: that women are for men’s sexual pleasure.

4. Focus has also included cuts being made to funding to programs assisting victims of Violence Against Women (VAWA).

So, okay, it has been intense, but is it really a War on Women? Conservatives say that liberals are trying to make you believe that. Rush Limbaugh included.

The answer is YES, there is a War On Women. Let me tell you why.

When women’s rights to decide for their bodies are taken from them and put in the hands of the government, women are seen as incapable of making decisions and participating fully in the society.

This dehumanizes women. It makes us less than. When we are seen as less than, we are treated poorly. We are more easily seen as objects. Advertising also regularly uses women’s bodies in ways that objectify us, reinforcing this notion. When we are seen as objects, we are not people and can’t make decisions for ourselves and our bodies and what we want for ourselves or our children or for the world. This edges us out of participating.

Right now we are participating, but not equally. Anyone can look at the government and see that there aren’t as many women as there are men. We are in corporations but don’t hold as many leader or board positions as men. We write but aren’t as published in news sources as men. In the U.S., we have more education overall than men, but are still passed up for promotions and not paid the same amount as men.

If we can’t participate in the society like men can, then we don’t have a seat at the table when decisions are made about us and on issues that are really important to our lives. This may be healthcare. It may be whether we have to cover our heads in public. It may be whether we can drive or vote or work outside of the home.

Am I sounding extreme? These healthcare issues being talked about as the War on Women are about our right to make choices for our bodies. That can be whether we want a safe abortion or not. It can also be whether we want to have sex or not (rape). Whether we want to be married off to someone we don’t love. Whether we want to be sold into sex slavery. Whether we can decide what we want to wear. Whether we want to have acid thrown on us.

*When we can’t make decisions for ourselves, we are seen as 2nd class and less than. When we are seen in this way, the more violence is perpetrated against us.

The more we are beaten up, put down, raped, and killed. This is a direct link and I have drawn it out to explain it, but the connection happens in an instant. It is happening now. Women are raped, beaten, killed all the time for being women.

So yes- this is a life or death matter. Yes it is a War On Women.

There are marches being scheduled all over the country on April 28th, so sign up to go to one in your area to preserve women being women and being able to make decisions for themselves. Click on this link: We Are Women March

Trust women. There is a war on us and it does have casualties.

Grrl Code: The backlash of people saying there is no war on women is just that, backlash. Women have made tremendous gains in equality and Patriarchal forces don’t like it and are pushing back. But this is real, the push to cut our healthcare and the laws that don’t allow us to make choices for our bodies threaten our personhood and put us at greater risk of violence.