“Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or tears!
Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have taught them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the bosom of the devastated earth, a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, Disarm!”
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail & commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesars but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.”
The women responsible for the holiday we know as Mother’s Day did not celebrate the day as it is celebrated today in the United States. The day as they envisioned and conceived it had nothing to do with telephone calls from children, flowers, candy, or dinners out. It had nothing to do with the mothers and grandmothers with the most children and grandchildren being recognized with carnations and ribbons during church meetings. It wasn’t about Hallmark cards or Hallmark moments.
The women most responsible for Mother’s Day were radicals; feminist revolutionaries. Julia Ward Howe, who penned the Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870, was an abolitionist, sharing leadership of the movement with the likes of William Lloyd Garrison, William Cullen Bryant, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. She was a playwright, a poet and a mother of six who once wrote of her abusive marriage under a pen name when her husband forbade her to publish. She was a peace activist who worked tirelessly for an end to war and for healing the wounds of war which were suffered by civilians and soldiers alike. She was a woman who began to see and understand the parallels between the institution of slavery in the United States and the enslavement of the people of women.
Julia Ward Howe struggled as we struggle today in an oppressive marriage in which her husband threatened that if she divorced him - as she tried to do and wanted to do - he would maintain custody of their youngest two children. Chattel to her husband, as were all wives in the 1800s, Howe’s husband controlled her inheritance, using this power he had over her to withhold the money which would have allowed her freedom to independently engage in the political work which gave her life meaning.
If we understand the reality of Howe’s life, then what she wrote in her Mother’s Day Proclamation takes on new meaning for us. When Howe writes, “Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage for caresses and applause,” she writes not only of the reality of mothers in bondage to their husbands throughout history, she writes of her own very private and personal bondage - and hell — as well.
Mother’s Day was originally Anna Reeves Jarvis’s idea. Jarvis had been a peace activist during the Civil War, devoting herself to healing the wounds and horrors of war for soldiers and their families on both sides. Jarvis called the very first “mother’s days,” “Mothers’ Work Days,” days set aside to improve sanitation during a time when more soldiers in the Civil War were dying from disease and infection than from the wounds of battle.
It was the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in the 1870s, following on the heels of the devastation of the Civil War, which moved Julia Ward Howe to begin a one-woman international peace crusade inaugurated by her Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870. In 1872 she traveled to Europe hoping to promote an International Women’s Peace Conference, but established peace organizations there would not allow her to speak publicly because she was a woman. She rented her own hall and conducted her own meetings, but her attempts failed. She returned to the U.S. and promoted Mother’s Day as a day as a festival of peace; her initiative was successful and resulted in a June 2 Mother’s Day celebration in major cities which lasted 30 years. It was a day in which mothers and grandmothers united to oppose violence and war, a day in which they demanded that men lay down their weapons and work for a peaceful new world.
Mother’s Day lasted only for a short time in its conception as a day of revolution and resistance. When the elder Ann Jarvis died, her daughter began a campaign to revision Mother’s Day as a holiday honoring the individual sacrifices of mothers for their families. The younger Jarvis’s efforts found favor with Woodrow Wilson’s relentlessly anti-Women’s Suffrage administration, and in 1913, Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May Mother’s Day, without any reference to the reason for which it was envisioned by the elder Jarvis and Julia Ward Howe.
Today Mother’s Day in the U.S. is a billion-dollar industry dedicated to sentimentalizing and romanticizing motherhood as patriarchally envisioned, all the while the Bush Administration, patriarchal religion, and conservative ideologues in general wage war on mothers by way of forced motherhood, denying access to contraceptives and abortion, criminalizing them and penalizing them for such things as breastfeeding in public, for their health problems, disabilities, and impoverishment, for their victimization by abusive partners, and for rejecting the abuses of technobirth in favor of birthing their own way, attended by midwives. Today’s Mother’s Day, instead of being a day of resistance to all forms of violence, war, and tyranny, is a day set aside for the perpetuation and repetition of platitudes, meaningless gestures, and consumerism. It is a mockery of the revolutionary vision and work of the women who conceived it.
Howe is remembered in male supremacist history as the writer of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, but that song was written just as Howe began her public work and before the burgeoning of her own feminist consciousness. Later she would write:
“”During the first two thirds of my life, I looked to the masculine idea of character as the only true one. I sought its inspiration, and referred my merits and demerits to its judicial verdict. . . . The new domain now made clear to me was that of true womanhood — woman no longer in her ancillary relation to her opposite, man, but in her direct relation to the divine plan and purpose, as a free agent, fully sharing with man every human right and every human responsibility. This discovery was like the addition of a new continent to the map of the world, or of a new testament to the old ordinances.”
It was in this spirit that Howe penned her Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870. What might our communities, nation, our world, look like, were mothers and grandmothers to re-member and recover our herstory, dis-membered now by male supremacists? What if we were to reject the mockery which has been made of Howe’s proclamation and this day, in favor of returning to our foremothers’ revolutionary militance and dedication to the building of a new world, for our children and grandchildren, for all people? What if we seized this day, taking the opportunity it affords us to remind our children, grandchildren, friends, relatives, all who will listen of the vision of the women whose work originally inspired this day. What if we read the true Mother’s Day Proclamation to our families and then told them the story of the woman who wrote it?
Violence Against Lesbians of Color and the Love That Empowers Usis an art exhibit that will be held at the Brecht Forumin June. The opening reception is June 6th and will have dynamite performers. We are trying to commemorate the death of Sakia Gunn, Rayshon Holmes and Shania Baraka. We are also going to remember the New Jersey 4 and are looking for lesbians of color to do artwork to make these women ’s struggles visible.
Please contact Anoush if you are interested and spread the word.
Rain and Thunder: A Radical Feminist Journal ofDiscussion and Activism
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Deadline for submissions to the 14th Carnival of Radical Feminists is Monday, May 12, so send your links to favorite posts to Maggie over at Maggie’s Metawatershed by clicking here. You can read more about the Carnival of Radical Feminists here. Feel free to submit as many posts as you’d like, your own or anyone else’s, just make sure they are consistent with the guidelines established here.
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To the extent your reality does not fit the law’s picture, your rape is not illegal. The implications of this for everyday sex life are that any man who knows a woman of the same race can probably get away with raping her. The better he knows her, the more likely he is to get away with it. Married women in states that do not have a law against marital rape are the ultimate example…
What does all this mean for having no mean no? When no can legally mean yes, what does yes mean in everyday life? When rape passes legally as intercourse, what is sexual intimacy? The law of rape deeply affects sexual intimacy by making forced sex legally sex, not rape, every night. Every day, because women know this, they do not report rapes nine times out of ten. When a woman does report, the media have the legal right to print her name and picture, making her into everyday pornography…Many women, no matter how violated they were, do not call what happened to them rape if they do not think a court would agree with them. In this ultimate triumph of law over life, law tells women what happened to them and many of us believe it. When asked, “Have you ever been raped?” many women answer, “I don’t know.
…The realm in which women’s everyday life is lived, the setting for many of these daily atrocities, is termed “the private.” Law defines the private as where law is not, that into which law does not intrude, where no harm is done other than by law’s presence. In everyday life, the privacy is his….Wives are raped in private. Women’s labor is exploited in private. Equality is not guaranteed in private. Prostitution, when acts of sex occur out of public view, is often termed private….
Women in everyday life have no privacy in private. In private, women are objects of male subjectivity and male power. The private is that place where men can do whatever they want because women reside there. The consent that supposedly demarcates this private surrounds women and follows us wherever we go. Men seem to reside in public where laws against harm exist — real harm, harm to men and whoever has the privilege to be hurt like men — and follow them wherever they go. Having arranged the law against rape and battering and sexual abuse of children so virtually nothing is done about them, and having supported male power in the home as a virtual absolute, the law then proclaims its profoundest self-restraint, its guarantee of liberty where it matters most, in “the right to be left alone.” This home is the place Andrea Dworkin has described from battered women’s perspective as “that open grave where so many women lie waiting to die.” As a legal doctrine, privacy has become the affirmative triumph of the state’s abdication of women. Sanctified by the absolution of law, the private is the everyday domain of women in captivity, abandoned to their isolation and told it is what freedom really means.–Catharine A. MacKinnon, “Law in the Everyday Life of Women,” in Women’s Lives, Men’s Laws, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2005
In the same chapter from which I excerpted the above quote, MacKinnon makes the point that women in the United States have so far made at least one law: the law against sexual harassment. Before sexual harassment law, sexual harassment was simply everyday life for women, something men did to women with impunity. When women’s experiences of being sexually harassed were made the basis for a law against that harassment, life began to change for women. Men didn’t stop sexually harassing us, but there was a name for what they did now, and, as MacKinnon says, the experience had an “analysis that placed it within the collective reality of gender, a forum for controntation with some dignity and the possibility of relief. … Changing what could be done by law changed the way it felt to live through [sexual harassment] in life, and the status of women took a step from victim to citizen.”
Whoever has sexual intercourse or unnatural sexual intercourse with a person having obtained that person’s consent by the use of fraud, concealment, or artifice and who thereby intentionally deceived such person so that a reasonable person would not have consented but for the deception, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for life or any term of years. As used in this statute, `fraud’ or `artifice’ shall not be construed to mean a promise of future consideration.
Intentional sex tort laws would require fair disclosure for giving of consent to be recognized as valid, with issues of intent to offend and offensive contact factored in, as with battery. As Sacks says, “In a world filled with dangerous sexual diseases, it is particularly important to protect women’s rights to protect their own bodies, not just against physical violence, but against fraudulent inducement of sexual decisions and all of the dangerous consequences that can result from a lack of truly informed consent to sexual relations.”
Laws that recognize and punish theft of sexual autonomy (by, for example, lying about important things, like who someone is or whether he has STD’s, in order to get women to agree to have sex with him), name a theft most women have experienced as rape and, as with sexual harassment law, offer an analysis and recognition of our lived reality which could powerfully change it.
How likely laws are to bring about real change for women can often be gauged by men’s response to their proposal. Following are a few choice responses from male attorneys who blogged in response to Sacks’s post. They give us some idea how large is the boulder we might have to move up the mountain and how steep the mountain might be.
Geeklawyer had thought that feminism was a joke that after 25 years was confined to history and the odd nostalgic memory of decaying overweight women with sagging breasts and moustaches…
Apparently a bunch of strapon wearing bull-dyke feminist law professors are asserting that lying to a woman in order to give her the pleasure of one’s Pork Sword is rape. American professors are a breed with less intellectual credentials than one would accept in the UK. Across the pond ‘Professor’ is merely a job title rather than, as it is here, a recognition of intellectual prowess.
I find Professor Sack’s bigoted description of sexual dynamics disgusting. Why is it that men are depicted as sexual predators doing anything possible to “invade” a women’s bodies? And women are these bastions of sexual virtue knitting in the castle tower only trying to fend off attacks from the raving hordes below? Does she not realize that all human beings are sexual animals and will occassionally lie to get it?
Expanding tort law to cover dishonest sexual encounters is a horrifying proposition. We have to be left to be human — even if that means that some immoral, abhorrent, and even disgusting behavior will leak through the sieve of our legal system… For as long as we live and love, someone will lie about their feelings to someone else… I’mnot simply arguing that boys will be boys. I am arguing that this is the yin to the yang of love, passion and ecstasy.
Every time you meet someone or f*** someone you are taking a risk. That’s part of the thrill!
Yeah, coming up positive for HPV is just so damned hawt and sexxxeeeeee.
Well, it should be interesting. Thanks to Ann Bartow for the distant early warning and especially for introducing me to Deana Pollard Sacks. I’m looking forward to reading everything she writes and passing it along.
Sabrina Rasmussen, 19, above, was 11 years old when she was kidnapped by Terapon Adhahn, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole last Friday for the rape and murder of Zina Linnik, who was 12. Rasmussen’s family’s car had been stolen days earlier. Normally she would have been driven to school, but on this day she walked the six blocks. I’ve walked those blocks many times. I grew up in the Gault Jr. High school area, walked to Sheridan Elementary School every day, road the bus to piano lessons just a few blocks from Gault when I was only seven or eight years old.
A friend was with Sabrina at first as they walked to school, but her friend decided to take a short cut. Shortly thereafter, Adhahn jumped out of a truck and chased, then grabbed Sabrina as she ran from him. She was tiny, only 4′3″ tall. Adhahn forced her into his truck, drove her to a wooded area near Ft. Lewis, taped her to a tree and raped her. After he left, she walked along a dirt road until she reached a highway where a woman soldier found her bleeding and carrying a stick as if to protect herself. She was taken to the hospital and underwent surgery for her injuries.
Her attacker was never found until last year, after he’d raped and murdered another girl, Zina Linnik. All of those years, Rasmussen had feared he might come back for her. He had told her repeatedly when he raped her that he was going to kill her. DNA tests confirmed it was Adhahn who raped her.
Rasmussen came forward to tell her story publicly in newspapers and on television in support of other raped girls and women, so they might draw strength from the fact that she had survived. She’s a tough cookie. She told reporters if and when she testifies against Adhahn, she’ll look him in the eyes and say, “I’m the winner in this game.” In a video you can watch here, she says, “If he’d tried it now, I could take him.” Her video is worth watching, testifying as it does, to the strength and courage of this young woman survivor and her determination not only to go on with her own life, but to offer her support and stand in solidarity with all girls and women, and especially the other girls she believes have been Adhahn’s victims and who haven’t yet come forward. Rasmussen was present in the courtroom when Adhahn was sentenced.
UPDATE: Terapon Adhahn, left, was sentenced Friday to life in prison without possibility of parole. He was convicted of the following crimes:
• One count each of aggravated first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree rape in the July 2007 death of 12-year-old Zina Linnik.
• Three counts of first-degree rape and one count of first-degree kidnapping in the rape of an 11-year-old Tacoma girl abducted on her way to school in May 2000.
• One count of first-degree rape, three counts of second-degree rape and three counts of third-degree rape of a child for repeated sexual assaults of a teenage girl who lived with him from 2003 to 2005.
• One count of failing to register as a sex offender, for not abiding by the conditions of his sentence for a 1990 incest conviction.
Heart
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The man in chains in the photo, Terapon Adhahn, 42, was arrested a few days ago, after he told police where he left the body of Zina Linnek, 12, one of eight children whose family lives in Tacoma, Washington, where I was born and grew up, within a few miles of where three of my adult children now make their homes. Adhahn left Zina’s body at a rest stop in an area of personal importance to me, at the entrance to Silver Lake on the Mountain Highway not far from Tacoma, where my grandparents built a cabin when I was a tiny girl, a cabin my parents still own which lies just below the home in which they now reside, and where our family regularly gathers. Whenever we drove up to “the lake” when I was a girl, my dad would joke in a kindhearted way about people picnicking in the rest area, saying they likely believed they were out “in the wilderness.” To my dad, only remote, nearly inaccessible, “rugged” areas qualified as “wilderness.” We’d smile at my dad, the harried attorney become quasi-swagger-y like a mountain man, and we’d drive around the bend just moments away from my grandparents’ rustic cabin, complete with outhouse in those days, full of family memories and memorabilia, as it still is.
The days of reminiscing as we drive past that “rest area” are history now; that place will forever be shadowed and haunted by the brutal murder of a little girl, whose body was discarded as so much rubbish there.
by Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff, Women’s Space, May 4, 2008
Introduction
Last January I blogged about Jamie Leigh Jones, a Halliburton/KBR employee in Iraq who was brutally gang-raped by co-workers after having had her drink surreptitiously drugged. She was so badly injured in the attack, she required surgery. She was seen by a doctor and a rape kit documented the rapes (though part of the rape kit mysteriously disappeared while in the “care” of Halliburton employees). After the rapes, Jones was imprisoned in a container for several days, deprived of basic necessities of life and was guarded by Halliburton/KBR employees to prevent her escape. She managed to gain access to a cell phone, called her father in Texas, and her father contacted a Republican legislator, Ted Poe, who secured Jones’ release and return to the U.S. Jones was in Iraq for only four days. Upon her return she retained attorneys, but Halliburton/KBR maintains, and Courts have so far agreed, that Jones must submit her claims to binding arbitration rather than filing a civil lawsuit because she signed a “binding arbitration clause” hidden in an 18-page employment contract she signed before she left for Iraq. Unlike civil and criminal court proceedings, arbitrations are private and confidential, not disclosed to the public.
Jones testified about the rapes before a Congressional investigatory committee (Youtube video of her testimony can be viewed at the link above to my January post.) The Department of Justice was subpoenaed to testify before the committee as well but declined to appear. As things stand, women employees of defense contractors in foreign countries may be, and are being, sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, battered and raped with impunity and their only recourse is private arbitration with their employers once they manage to escape what often amounts to captivity and are back in the U.S.
After I blogged about Jamie Leigh Jones, I began receiving e-mails and comments from relatives of another woman, Tracy Barker, who had also been employed by Halliburton/KBR, and who had also been raped in Iraq. Barker’s story seemed complicated and the e-mails and comments I received were sometimes hard to follow. I wasn’t sure what to make of what I was reading and knew I needed to do some investigation. I spent time today, finally — having yesterday received another comment to my blog on behalf of Tracy Barker – investigating the claims of those who have loved and supported her. I pulled up U.S. District Court dockets from the Southern District of Texas and the Eastern District of Virginia, read all of the relevant and substantive pleadings and viewed all of the exhibits attached to the pleadings. I read the comparatively few articles I could find online about Barker, a New York Times article, (also posted on Truthout), an article on People’s Speak Radio, a post written by another American woman blogger raped in Iraq, and the few comments to the posts, which I believe included comments by counsel retained by Halliburton. Barker’s story resonated and rang true to me, and I am convinced that she and her family members are reporting events which deserve as much public attention as can be gathered on her behalf. Barker, her husband and her family strike me as decent, honest and hardworking citizens who have repeatedly been shocked and stunned, as they should be, by the treatment Barker has received from her employer, government officials, attorneys, arbitrators, courts, corporate executives, HR personnel and news media they believed they could trust.
For the most part Barker has been silenced, prevented from telling her story. She was summoned to the same Congressional hearing to which Jamie Leigh Jones was summoned but was not permitted to testify. She had only two hours’ notice that she needed to board a flight to attend the hearing. She had just given birth to twins who were born prematurely and were in intensive care. Nevertheless, she traveled to Washington D.C. at her own expense of $1,300. In the Youtube video below, a somber Barker is visible seated behind the podium where Jamie Leigh Jones is speaking. Having traveled all that way immediately post-partum, she never got the chance to speak for herself before the assembled Congressional committee.
Tracy Barker is the daughter of a Vietnam veteran and the wife of a career Army soldier, Galen Barker, who has served on the Golden Knights Parachute Team for 24 years. She is the mother of five children.
Sexually Harassed and Threatened by Supervisors in Baghdad
Barker began working for Halliburton in 2004 in the “Green Zone” in Baghdad.
Shortly after her arrival in Baghdad, her supervisors, Crystal Daniel and Barron Marcee, began to sexually harass and threaten her. She observed that they were also threatening and sexually harassing Iraqi women who would at times cry and approach her for help. At one point one of these supervisors choked an Iraqi woman, “Sunni”, in a conference room as though attempting to kill her. Shocked and outraged, Barker reported these events through what she believed was a confidential program allowing employees to make complaints through Halliburton employees in Houston. But Barker’s complaints were not kept confidential; instead they were forwarded on to her supervisors, who then retaliated by stepping up the threats and sexual harassment. When she resisted, just as with Jones, Barker was imprisoned in a container where supervisors attempted to force her to sign a false statement that she was guilty of bad conduct and where she was denied any contact with the outside world, including her husband. She was not allowed to even use the bathroom except under the surveillance of Halliburton/KBR employees.
Pornography Papering Basra Office Walls
Barker was then transferred to Basra. When she arrived, a number of men were present and waiting for her. She was told by a manager the men were there to see how “good looking” she was. She shared a working space with several men. The walls and halls throughout were completely covered with pornography, including photographs of male coworkers visiting brothels in Thailand, as they frequently did, and photographs of animals copulating. Copies of these images on the wall above her desk are attached as exhibits to documents in the lawsuit she filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, and I saw them. One of them depicted a supervisor in bed with the caption, “We try to get you into bed.”
“What Happens In Basra, Stays in Basra”
There was no HR department in Basra, so Barker complained about her supervisor, Sherman Richardson, to someone she understood to be an HR employee working for the State Department, Charles Hermanen. Hermanen said the woman Barker was replacing had complained of the same problems and had left because of them, and that other employees had complained about Richardson as well, but that “Sherman will be Sherman.” This was Barker’s introduction to the oppressions and abuses she would experience in Basra, where the motto, it was said, was “What happens in Basra, stays in Basra.”
At one point private meetings were held by the State Department in conjunction with Halliburton where women– soldiers, contractors and State Department employees — were told they were not safe in Basra because of the men’s behavior. They were warned NEVER to go anywhere alone. They were told of break-ins into women’s quarters, theft of undergarments, and peeping Toms. They were also told if they reported these meetings, they would lose their jobs.
Sexual Harassment by Basra Camp Manager Craig Grabein
As time passed, Basra Camp Manager Craig Grabein, a married man in his 40s from Texas, began sexually harassing Barker, knocking on her door at all hours of the day and night, telling her he would protect her from all of the other predators there if she would have sex with him.
Scared, Barker determined to get to Kuwait to report these events to the Halliburton/KBR HR office there. Every time she was scheduled to go, however, her name would be removed from the manifest at the last moment, so she couldn’t leave. When she was finally able to leave, she was followed, threatened, then left alone in a staging area in Iraq in the middle of a war zone. She hitched a ride to Kuwait on a food truck driven by a British soldier and rode 19 hours through a war zone, aghast as she passed starving children and insurgents all along the way. She arrived in Kuwait only to be told by Halliburton employees to return to Basra and to say nothing.
She returned to Basra and found that all of her belongings had been removed from her room.
She began talking daily by phone with a woman employee of Halliburton/KBR, but she was not allowed to travel.
Attempted Rape by U.S. Embassy Official Ali Mokhtare
Barker’s job in Basra was to see to it that equipment was functioning properly at the Basra camp or to see to it that it was replaced. One evening Ali Mokhtare (below), Deputy Regional Coordinator for the U.S. Regional Embassy Office in Basra, Iraq, the second highest ranking representative of the United States Government there, told Barker he was having trouble with his air conditioner.
Barker went to his quarters to investigate, but when she arrived, Mokhtare didn’t mention his air conditioner. Instead, he asked whether she would like to join him in having a Jack Daniels and Coke. Barker tasted the drink and found it very strong. Barker spoke with Mokhtare about other job opportunities for herself and her husband. But then, Mokhtare grabbed Barker’s blouse, told her he had been trying to see what was under her blouse all day, and attempted to kiss her. She fought him, and he wouldn’t allow her to leave his room. Instead he told her stories about “chop chop square” in Saudi Arabia where people lost their limbs and tongues and told her about a Filipino woman he heard of who had been raped repeatedly by a Saudi prince. The woman had killed herself when no one believed her story.
Barker was able finally to flee in terror with Mokhtare in pursuit, yelling at her in Farsi. A woman who saw what was happening and who spoke Farsi told Barker Mokhtare was threatening her.
Paraded Before Male Employees of Halliburton
Barker reported the attempted rape to Halliburton/KBR and State Department security and was again locked up for three days in a container and allowed no contact with anyone. When she snuck out and used a pay phone to call her husband, who was trying to contact someone he knew from Black Water who might be able to rescue her, she was caught and forced to stay in the container for another day. She spent her days in the locked container crying, pleading for help, and hiding under a bed holding a knife.
After she had been in the container three days camp supervisors forced her to put on the clothes she had been wearing when Mokhtare attacked her — a shirt, vest and trousers — and to parade through a common area filled with men so they could determine whether the men found her clothing sexually provocative.
Barker was consistently refused medical care and was not allowed to leave Basra.
Meanwhile, Mokhtare had been questioned by security personnel about the incident. This is what he said about the incident, taken directly from a Diplomatic Security Service Memorandum dated June 25, 2005, and filed as an exhibit in Barker’s Southern District of Texas lawsuit:
Subject [Mokhtare] stated that he and Barker had some initial job related discussions and the remainder of their conversation was professional. Subject said that Barker wore a buttoned vest with a white undershirt underneath. He claimed the vest and the shirt had plunging necklines. Subject further stated that Barker continually pulled at her vest and shirt as if to expose her breasts. Subject admitted that he pulled her vest and shirt opened (sic) and said to Barquer (sic) ”What do you have behind there?” [Investigator] asked subject if he thought Barker was interested in an advance or some type of romantic or sexual contact. Subject repolied in the negative. Upon further questioning… Subject said, “I admit it was an inappropriate move.” He also said, “I made a mistake and it was stupid.”
… Subject claimed he conveyed several stories about briefings he received of Saudi misconduct and observations of ”chop/chop square” where punishments such as cutting out tongues and chopping off limbs took place. Subject further stated that he told Barker a story abot a Saudi Prince who allegedly raped a Philipino woman who later committed suicide because no one believed her story….
[Investigator] asked what happened upon Barker’s departure. Subject said that as Barker got up to leave he stood and they hugged at which point he kissed her cheek. Subject further stated that Barker turned her hed towards his mouth giving him the impression that she wanted to be kissed. Subject admitted that Barker put her hand over her mouth and said no. Subject said he released the hug at that point and offered to walk her back to her accommodation trailer.
In other words, Mokhtare admitted he had attacked Barker and blamed her for his attacks. It is interesting– when Barker recounted the events of that night, she remembered touching the pendant on a necklace given to her by her husband that she wore all of the time, the kind of thing we do as women when we are scared and are attempting to comfort ourselves.
Mokhtare is still employed today by the State Department.
Raped by Camp Manager Craig Grabein
Hearing that a doctor had been stranded at the base, Barker contacted him, told him what happened, and ignoring the orders of her supervisors that she stay in Basra, the doctor placed her on a manifest to leave the next day. She was given sleeping pills. That night camp manager, Craig Grabein, the man who had been continually sexually harassing her, demanding sex from her in exchange for his “protection,” entered her room and raped her. She woke up to find him on top of her. She immediately reported the rape to the doctor and to authorities*. She left Basra the next day.
Silenced at Home
When Barker returned to the United States, she was told by a State Department investigator, Lynn Falango, that Mokhtare would be stripped of his security clearance and prosecuted. He never was. Later Falango called Barker to tell her what had happened to Barker in Iraq was being covered up and that Barker should hire an attorney. Falango said she had been told not to contact Barker again and that the case had been taken from her when she tried to get Mokhtare prosecuted.
A few months later Barker was surprised when she began receiving calls and correspondence from other women Halliburton/KBR employees who had also been raped in Iraq. These women said Falango had given them Barker’s name and number as someone who had gone through the same thing and might be able to help, apparently since no one else could! The inference is that one of the women who contacted Barker was Jamie Leigh Jones, although Jones’ name is not specifically mentioned in court documents as one of these women.
State Department Hush Money
In November of 2005, Barker received a phone call from Attorney Advisor, Henry Norcom, who worked with the Civil Rights Office of the State Department. He offered her $3,500 to drop the allegations against Mr. Mokhtare. Barker refused and was then told her case was closed.
EEOC Finds in Favor of Barker
Barker had filed charges of discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation with the Houston Office of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission once she got back to the U.S. I read the EEOC reports and they found in favor of Barker, and stated that Halliburton retaliated against Barker following her good faith report of sexual harassment, and that instead of addressing Barker’s complaint, they tried to orchestrate her termination. **
Civil Suits Dismissed
Barker filed a civil suit against Halliburton/KBR, Mokhtare, and others in the U.S. District Court for both the Eastern and Southern Districts of Texas. Her case was first moved from the Eastern to the Southern District, then was ultimately dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because of the “mandatory arbitration” clause Barker had signed with Halliburton/KBR. In issuing his order on August 16, 2007, Judge Gray H. Miller wrote:
All of these arguments address the wisdom of arbitration as a whole and more specifically arbitration of sexual harassment claims. Whether it is wise to send this type of claim to arbitration is not a question for this court to decide. District courts are bound to follow the precedents set by higher courts. And, that precedent is quite clear: Barker’s claims are included within the ambit of claims proper for arbitration. Sadly, sexual harassment, up to and including sexual assault, is a reality in today’s workplace. …Although Congress has expressly exempted certain types of employment claims from the reach of the Federal Arbitration Act, it has not addressed sexual harassment claims. …Therefore, unless and until Congress tells the courts that binding contracts to arbitrate do not include these types of claims, Barker’s policy arguments cannot prevail. For all of the foregoing reasons, Barker’s claims must be arbitrated pursuant to the arbitration provision of her employment contract. (Bolds mine).
I noted that within the past month, a motion for consideration (basically an appeal of the judge’s decision) brought by Barker’s attorneys was denied.
Judge Miller severed the complaints against Mokhtare and transferred them to the Eastern District of Virginia. Mokhtare attempted there to be granted “certification,” which would exempt him from prosecution based on the fact that he was acting as an employee of the State Department and hence was immune from prosecution. A couple of weeks ago, the Virginia judge denied Mokhtare this certification. The case continues.
Silenced
In the meantime, Tracy Baker has been all but silenced. She was not allowed to tell her story to the Congressional investigatory committee. She was not allowed to tell the most important parts of her story to ABC’s 20/20.*** She has been told by a Texas judge that her only option is mandatory, private arbitration with Halliburton/KBR, the company that allowed and ignored her rape, battering, imprisonment and abuse for over a year. Hillary Clinton refused to help her because, said Clinton, Barker wasn’t a resident of the state of New York. She is being told that having been sexually assaulted by a top-ranking State Department official, raped by a Halliburton camp manager, and continually sexually harassed, imprisoned and tormented throughout her employment in Iraq are employment “grievances” to be resolved by arbitration. She suffers post-traumatic stress disorder and cannot work.
Conclusion
I don’t know why Jamie Leigh Jones, who spent only four days in Iraq, has received the amount of publicity and support she’s received, compared with Barker who spent over a year there in both Baghdad and Basra. I can’t help but wonder whether it is because, as Barker was told, “Gang rape sells, not sexual assault or ‘just’ rape.” I wonder whether it might be, in part, because Barker is French Basque/Spanish and is hence a woman of color, therefore not the kind of complainant the blonde American Jamie Leigh Jones is, or because Jones’s father was the kind of man who could gain the immediate attention of a Republican legislator with a quick phone call, securing his daughter’s release within three days of the attacks on her. I wonder if it might be, in part, because Barker is a mother of five, instead of a young woman in her 20s with no children. I wonder whether it was because Barker saw too much, knew too much, including about the attacks of Halliburton employees on Iraqi women as well as Halliburton employees. I wonder if, despite Mokhtare’s own admissions, Barker going to his room – even though as part of her job, it was up to her to address the problem he said he had with his air conditioner — made her claims less interesting or credible somehow. I suspect, in part, it might be because at times, Barker has seemed to castigate and blame herself, to express guilt and remorse for being unable in her drugged exhaustion to fight Craig Grabein off when he raped her, in the way, women often blame ourselves, as though it is up to us to keep men from raping us, instead of up to men to stop raping women.
Whatever the reason, the silencing of Tracy Barker is an outrage. Her story must be heard, and she must receive justice. To that end, I have written this post. Please, spread the word.
* When the doctor, Dr. Pakkal, who rescued Barker, was later questioned, he said he had seen so many women who had been raped in Basra, he couldn’t remember Barker specifically.
** The EEOC found that Barker’s supervisors in Baghdad were abusive to both men and women in their charge and so they did not find that the supervisors’ abuse was on the basis of Barker’s sex.
*** Both the State Department and Halliburton/KBR declined to discuss Barker’s case with 20/20.
Sources for this article:
Documents, pleadings and original source documents filed as exhibits and attachments, in Tracy K. and Glen D. Barker v. Halliburton Company d/b/a KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root) Services Company, Inc.; KBR Technical Services, Inc.; Ali Mokhtare; Services Employees International, Inc.; and the United States of America, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (Beaumont Division), Case No. 4:07-cv-02677;
Documents filed in Tracy K. and Glen D. Barker v. Halliburton, et al., U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria, Case No. 1:2007cv01231
"Oh, Misery, I have drunk thy cup of sorrow to its dregs, but I am still a rebel." — Lucy Parsons
"We, the women of this country, have no ballot even if we wished to use it, and the only way that we can be represented is to take a man to represent us. You men have made such a mess of it in representing us that we have not much confidence in asking you . . .
"We [women] are the slaves of slaves. We are exploited more ruthlessly than men. Whenever wages are to be reduced the capitalist class use women to reduce them, and if there is anything that you men should do in the future it is to organize the women. . . .
"We [say] that the land shall belong to the landless, the tools to the toiler, and the products to the producers. . . . I believe that if every man and every woman who works, or who toils in the mines, mills, the workshops, the fields, the factories and the farms of our broad America should decide in their minds that they shall have that which of right belongs to them, and that no idler shall live upon their toil . . . then there is no army that is large enough to overcome you, for you yourselves constitute the army . . . .
"My conception of the strike of the future is not to strike and go out and starve, but to strike and remain in and take possession of the necessary property of production. . . .
". . . . Let us sink such differences as nationality, religion, politics…There is no power on earth that can stop men and women who are determined to be free at all hazards. There is no power on earth so great as the power of intellect. It moves the world and it moves the earth. . . .
"A woman of color and a working-class revolutionary, Parsons spent her life struggling for the rights of the poor, unemployed, homeless, women, children, and minority groups, and for a future society based on free association of labor organizations.
"Born in Texas, possibly a slave, she met Albert Richard Parsons, a militant advocate of the rights of freed people, around 1870, and they moved to Chicago in 1873. In 1877 Albert was blacklisted from the printing trade, and Lucy assumed household financial responsibility by opening a dress shop. She began writing about tramps, disabled veterans of the Civil War, and working women for the Socialist in 1878. She soon gave birth to two children.
"…With other anarchists, she began organizing for the May 1, 1886, general strike for the eight-hour day, concentrating her efforts on sewing women. On May 1, she and Albert led 80,000 workers and supporters up Michigan Avenue. Three days later a labor rally at the Haymarket was the occasion of a fatal bombing incident. Police charged that radical activists were responsible.
"As her comrades were rounded up after the May 4 bombing, Lucy began organizing the Haymarket defense. After eight defendants, including Albert, were found guilty of murder, she traveled to many states, pleading her comrades' innocence to the charges, but defending their revolutionary goals. By February 1887, she had given forty-three speeches in seventeen states. When Albert was executed in November of that year, Lucy became a widow with a cause to carry on."
This post is not about Barack Obama. This post is not about Hillary Rodham Clinton. This post is not about the Presidential campaign, which is making me more ill and heartsick by the day for so many reasons. This post does not mean I have turned from my woman-centered ways or politics. This post is about the speeches, sermons and beliefs of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the unbelievable, to me, public response.
I have been absolutely floored, in a continuing and ongoing way, by the media coverage and public reaction to Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s former pastor. It is a continuing, ongoing, painful, painful reminder to me of everything that has gone wrong with the United States over the past 40 years, of the ground we have lost as progressives and persons committed to justice and an end to oppression for all people, of the turn we have taken in the wrong direction in this country.
The statements described in the following excerpt of a news article I read yesterday, which, among others, are causing such outrage and uproar and gnashing of teeth, are, in my opinion, absolutely right on. In these statements the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is, to me, a welcome, welcome, breath of fresh air, a prophetic voice to which every American should be paying heed:
Having said America’s own terrorist acts encouraged the attacks of 9/11, [Wright] said, “You can not do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic, divisive principles.”
He was asked questions about his association with Louis Farrakhan (”Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains. He did not put me in slavery. And he did not make me this color.”) and his past assertion that HIV was a government plot to kill off people of color. (”I believe our government is capable of doing anything.”)
Following is more of what Wright said about 9/11 from another article:
“I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday. … This is a white man and he was upsetting the Fox news commentators to no end. … He pointed out that what Malcolm X said … was in fact coming true, America’s chickens are coming home to roost. We took this country, by terror, away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Rapaho, the Navaho—terrorism. We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear—terrorism.
“We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel; we bombed the Black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hardworking fathers. We bombed Qadaffi’s home and killed his child. …
“We bombed Iraq, we killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy; killed hundreds of hardworking people, mothers and fathers who left home to go to work that day, not knowing that they’d never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima; we bombed Nagasaki; and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon—and we never batted an eye: kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school, civilians, not soldiers; people just trying to make it day by day.
“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yard.
“America’s chickens are coming home to roost. Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that, y’all, not a Black militant, not a reverend who preaches about racism.”
These are prophetic words. These are visionary words. They are the words of a leader. These are also words spoken across the United States in black churches, especially, but in white churches of Wright’s denomination as well, every single Sunday morning, words which have been spoken for, by now, many decades by some of the greatest progressive leaders of our time.
The public response to these words and this message is absolutely heartbreaking to me, on so many levels. It tells me our nation has moved hopelessly, possibly intransigably and certainly dangerously, to the Right. It tells me that the backlash against the Civil Rights movement, the Peace movement, the Lesbian/Gay rights movement, has successfully dulled the sensibilities of the vast majority of the American public. It informs me that this nation labors under racial apartheid still in the most central and significant of ways. There is no other explanation for what has also become so obvious: that white people and nonblack people have absolutely no idea of the role of the black church and black pastors in the journey towards liberation for all people in this country, not only black people, but all women and all human beings of good will and good faith. It tells me that this nation wants a moderate President or even another conservative President, that contrary to my deepest hopes and dreams, and even beliefs, Americans do not want any real or meaningful change, they are not, as I am, longing for peace in the world, or real justice, or an end to oppression for all people, an end to racism, war, torture, murder, genocide, racism. They want business as usual, war as usual, racism as usual, lesbophobia as usual, just give them a better health plan and help them with their mortgages and they’ll be happy.
I have known that the numbers of true revolutionaries — real revolutionaries — has dwindled precipitously over the past decades. I see this every day across the “progressive” and “liberal” and “feminist” blogosphere so-called, where by far most of the bloggers are moderates, conservatives or libertarians, not progressives, leftists, or even liberals at all in the classical sense. They are not really interested in human rights, civil rights, rights for women, or an end to war, they are interested in carving out the best possible deal for themselves and the rest of the world be damned. I see this in the unbelievable, to me, reactions to actual revolutionary thought among so-called liberals and progressives. But I’ve held it in my mind and heart that what was needed was prophetic words and insights, spoken without apology, visionary calls to Americans to rise above their own self-interests and self-absorption for the sake of saving a nation and a world teetering on the brink of every form of destruction. I have been so wrong about Americans– about who Americans really are inside. Americans aren’t rising to any occasion, that much is clear. Left and right they are –incredibly, preposterously, absurdly – demanding that Wright apologize! It is unbelievable to me and honestly, so, so heartbreaking.
I do not want to talk about the Presidential campaign or frontrunners, I have nothing to say about them that is useful, productive, positive or helpful, so please do not attempt to comment about the candidates or the Presidential campaign which is currently making me ill. Even if I really like you, I will not approve any comments that are pro- or anti- any of the candidates, but especially the Democratic candidates. Thank you.
April 29, 2008 - 03:10 PM
A new study suggests that women treated with Fosomax to combat the symptoms of osteoporosis are twice as likely to develop a common form of irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation than those who have never taken the drug. Atrial fibrillation can lead to heart palpitations, fainting, fatigue or congestive heart failure. Atrial fibrillation is relatively common ailment affecting about one percent of Americans and becomes increasingly common with age, with just under ten percent of those over the age of 80 affected by the ailment. A new study headed by Dr. Susan Heckbert suggests that Fosomax may drastically increase the chances of developing atrial fibrillation.
For her study, Dr. Heckbert and her colleagues from Group Health analyzed 719 women with diagnosed atrial fibrillation that began taking the drug between 2001 and 2004, and 966 women who were the same age but did not have the condition. According to the findings, there was an 86 percent higher risk of newly found atrial fibrillation in those who had used Fosamax compared with those who had never used it.
Way back on November 12, 2001 — over six years ago – Susun Weed, a woman healer, responding to a question from a woman whose doctor had prescribed Fosomax, wrote:
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2001
Subject: Increase your bone mass naturally - not with Fosomax
The best things I know of for increasing bone mass are (1) yogurt, at least half a cup a day; (2) nourishing herbal infusions of nettle, oatstraw, comfrey leaf, or red clover, at least two cups a day. (I rotate the herbs so I have each one about two times a week.) (3) Elimination of coffee, white sugar, and white flour from your diet (little bits won’t hurt, but not daily use). (4) Increase in the amount of fat in the diet (needed for the processing of minerals). I have seen women increase their bone mass by 6 points in 6 months by using these three tips.
But I am not so sure that you really have a problem. Bone mass does not correlate with bone breakage!! Bone flexibility is what we want because that is what prevents breaks. Fosomax makes the bones more massive, but more brittle. Yoga, tai chi, and other stretching forms of exercise help women be more flexible. Are you doing this weekly?
Massive bones are not necessarily an indicator of health. Women with high bone mass are four times more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer! Women who take calcium supplements are twice as likely to break a bone as women who don’t. Perhaps you are listening to your doctor and doing what your doctor wants but maybe this is not so good for you.
By the lights of the gods of patriarchal medicine, of course, Weed is the heretic and quack, not them, not the drug companies, all of which dispense these pills full of disease-producing toxins like they are candy.
Just what we all need, eyelash perms. Only 60 bucks and they last six weeks! No more wrestling with the eyelash curler!
First Yanagawa chooses one of four sizes of rubber rods-—the bigger the rod, the looser and less dramatic the curl. Yanagawa glues the rod to the base of the eyelid, applies a small amount of glue to the rod and then carefully manipulates each lash with a toothpick so that the lashes are secured and curled over the rod. Yanagawa also uses a paintbrush, a Q-tip and a flat wooden stick to tame each lash. The client keeps her eyes closed with gauze taped underneath the eye.
Then, Yanagawa dabs perming solution on the lashes and covers the rod and lashes with plastic wrap for about 17 minutes. A neutralizer is applied for another 17 minutes and then a conditioner for a few minutes more. Eye-makeup remover breaks up the glue to help remove the rod. Finally, the eyes are flushed out with distilled water.
The perming process takes about an hour. It generally costs $60 or more and is supposed to last for a month and a half.
Having defined lashes has been a beauty standard since the time of Cleopatra, said Teresa Riordan, the author of the book “Inventing Beauty: A History of the Innovations That Have Made Us Beautiful.”
“But I think in the past century we have seen an arms buildup in terms of what the average woman wields in her eyelash arsenal,” she said. “False eyelashes, waterproof mascaras, lash builders have all changed our ideas of what constitutes a beautiful set of eyes. It’s really become much more exaggerated.”
In ancient times, women used to darken their lashes and eyelids using kohl, which could be made from onion water or donkey liver mixed with oil and opium or, worse yet, malachite, copper, iron and lead. According to Riordan’s book, a beauty writer in 1834 suggested using “lampblack,” the residue resulting from holding a saucer over a gas lamp, to color the eyes.
While many women are embracing the eyelash perm, there are safety concerns.
“Why would anyone do this?” asked Thomas Steinemann, an ophthalmologist in Cleveland. “There are enough risks in the world.”
Steinemann said he had seen only one patient who had the treatment, two years ago. The patient complained of irritation and pain, and that was enough to make Steinemann skeptical of the procedure. The patient had several days of discomfort, though she eventually felt better after lubricating her eyes with artificial tear drops.
In 1938, Congress gave the Food and Drug Administration more regulatory powers over such products after an eyelash dye caused cases of blindness and disfigurement. But the FDA is not required to approve cosmetics that are put out on the market. If the product is deemed to be hazardous, then the agency can demand that it be taken off the shelves.
In July 2004 the state board of Barbering and Cosmetology in Colorado banned eyelash perming, basing its decision on a 1989 FDA bulletin that warned against a specific eyelash perming cream.
Violet Leonard, 35, a freelance writer who lives in Oakland, Calif., has had an eyelash perm three times. She says the perm makes her eyes look “flirty,” and she doesn’t feel the need to wear mascara.
She acknowledges that the perm does sting around the eyes, but she says it’s worth not having to wrestle with an eyelash curler every morning.
“Your eyes water, you’re blinking a lot, but because it doesn’t take a lot of time, it’s easy to get over,” Leonard said.
Her last experience, however, wasn’t very successful, she said. Because smaller rods were used, her eyelashes were wound so tight that they turned out too curly—-she could feel her eyelashes touching her eyelid each time she blinked. The perm relaxed a little after about two weeks. But the experience won’t keep Leonard from getting another perm before her wedding next year, she said.
Bernstein said it was important to go to a professional for the procedure. She warns of “a lot of bad salons” that can botch a perm.
“Women should be ever alert to risks in the high-stakes game of beauty innovation,” Riordan said. “It’s not that innovators intend to cause harm, but in their entrepreneurial exuberance, as history shows, they sometimes cause great injury.”
If you haven’t already, do yourself a favor and read the Apostate’s most recent posts. The woman is on a roll.
Because most countries in the world are not such melting-pots as America is (and don’t have America’s slave-owning past), most people don’t have the sensitivity to race issues that we have here. Most of the world is comfortably mildly racist and there are few challenges to that even from liberal intelligentsia because most countries aren’t racially diverse (but they’re all sexist, almost without notable exception). Racist jokes are par for the course. People who look different are funny. They talk funny, they look funny, they have funny customs, they do weird unhygienic things in the bedroom and bathroom. They are Other, thus fair game.
Not saying this is right, just human. But American liberals are some of the least racist people I’ve ever met in my entire life.
Sexism, though. Where do you go to get away from that? I’ve been an expat from my native land, yet felt like my race has always allowed me safe spaces. I had a whole country to return to. Within my adopted homes, I’ve either had a ghetto, or I’ve had a liberal diverse area to romp in. Neither have caused me much racial discomfort. I’ve been able to ignore racial prejudice against me because there have been other options. There are many parts of the world where there is no racism. I don’t have a “race” category on this blog. For the most part, I can be unracialized, which is (I firmly believe) a good thing.
But there is no getting away from sexism. It’s to be found in even the most liberal men. It’s legal. It’s culturally widespread. It’s also universal. Where there are women in this world, there is discrimination and contempt and oppression and fear of rape.
Is this guy for real? If I hadn’t seen him at WAM with my own two eyes, I would imagine his blog to be one riotous fucking parody. The fact that he is, in fact, real and instead of offing himself for being such a miserable masochistic idiot, he publicly self-flagellates and keeps ejaculating all over the feminist blogosphere, is downright creepy. I’m officially creeped out. But hey, what’s one more freak in the online feminism circus?
One in 3 women and girls may be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in their lifetime. Shocking, isn’t it?
But what’s equally upsetting is that most women don’t denounce their abusers because they are afraid of further violence and of being stigmatized. Help us speak out for these women. Add your name to this rapidly growing book of names so it becomes a powerful lever to advocate for change. Be counted and let survivors of violence know that they can count on you.
If you’ve amassed a huge crowd to soundly denounce a woman blogger, and she still just won’t get it right (i.e., she won’t agree with you)?
I guess you delink and stop reading. Because bloggers have every right to write whatever they want to write, so far at least.
If you are a thoughtful person, maybe you consider the implications of amassing all of those people and all of that energy against a single woman blogger and what might be possible if you turned your attentions to white, male supremacist bloggers who blog their racism and sexism day in and day out, and who so far seem to have escaped your attention, for some reason.
In the past, I have sometimes taken issue with things Amanda Marcotte has written or done. If you do a search on this blog, you will come up with some things. I took issue with the proposed cover of her book, the one everyone is up in arms about, months ago, in this comments thread on Pandagon. All we could see then was the cover, but it sure did not portend well for what might be inside the book. My entry into the thread about the cover of the book, featuring a King Kong type figure ravishing a blonde, on August 21, 2007, was, “Amanda, the cover of that book is racist. The hell.”
But I am not down with what’s going on right now around Amanda’s book or Amanda, not at all. This will be the only post I will write about it and the only comment I will have about it anywhere.
On the day that Ampersand, of Alas a Blog, gets taken to task for — every single blessed day – benefitting from the sale of blatantly racist, misogynist pornography on his website, advertised not just by way of text but with pornographic imagery, photographs, maybe on that day I’ll take all of this outrage against Amanda, by people who suck up to Ampersand (and others who share Amp’s views) every single day, posting or commenting to his blog like they have some shred of sense, decency, or concern for female persons, seriously. Consider this fine specimen of feminist thought available to you every day, courtesy of Alas, a blog (warning, may trigger):
Ball Honeys is the premier BangBros ethnic site. BALL. Black, Asian, Latina, Ladies. I don’t think I can be any clearer than this. Some of the finest ethnic babes around. All featured in hot scenes, new every week. This is actually one of my favorite sites. The girls they find have the hottest asses around. Nothing beats a big, round booty. Nothing beats the Ball Honeys. Each week, the boys at BangBros deliver a new ethnic mama and get down to business.
Check it out for yourself, it is on Amp’s website (not safe for work, pornographic imagery). Caution, may trigger. (To go to the link, delete the spaces and paste it into your browser).
http://reviews.amptoons.com/ review/ball-honeys
On the day that Maia recognizes the seriousness of the presence of misogynist, racist pornographic images and text on Alas – where she regularly blogs – I’ll take her concerns about Seal Press and Amanda’s book seriously. When any of the crowd currently excoriating Amanda Marcotte begins to take racist, misogynist male pornographers and their apologists to task, I’ll view them as possibly having some shred of credibility, a leg to stand on, in criticizing Amanda Marcotte. When the Apostate’s perspectives — an immigrant, a woman of color, once homeless, a former muslim — are not shouted down, her motivations maligned, because she does not tow a predominantly white, liberal-guilt -fueled, or sexist-pretending-to-be-anti-racist party line usually favored more by white feminists — males especially – than persons of color, then I’ll pay attention to the women and men who are shouting the Apostate down with regularity and impugning her motivations, erasing her reality in every way they can, in the name of “calling out” some other woman’s (never a man’s) racism. It’s just so easy to hate a woman– isn’t it? It’s so easy to gather a crowd to go after a woman, and it’s not so easy at all to gather a similar crowd and to go after men. In fact, it’s dangerous.
I will have no part of the despicable behaviors I am witnessing right now on the blogosphere around Amanda’s book or Amanda herself. There is definitely no love lost between Marcotte and I. I don’t like her feminist politics and she doesn’t like mine, never has. But when I’ve taken issue with something she’s written, I’ve said my piece directly to Amanda, which is what I think you do if you care, remotely, about feminist women, if you have any concern whatsoever for sisterhood. I realize that’s an archaic concept to some — sisterhood — and anathema to men, for sure, but it will never be archaic to me and I don’t care what men think and haven’t for a very long time. Sisterhood, my sisters — this and they are what keep me getting up in the morning, putting one foot ahead of the other, when honest to the Mother I don’t really want to any more at times. The sisterhood, the hope of it, the reality of it, is what sustains me. I would suffocate without it.
I do not think the thing to do, because you take issue with something a feminist woman has done, is participate in or orchestrate a villagers-in-the-town-square scenario, everyone hollering the rough equivalent of ”burn the witch”, especially when day in, day out, you are giving men who profit, benefit, make and use racist, misogynist pornography a pass, when you are giving a pass to the women who support those men and spout the same rhetoric the men spout, or when you yourself participate in this. The particular bad energy, bad mojo, bad juju, blind hatred and spiraling violence, of this particular blogosphere ugliness, is what is responsible for what this world in all of its horror, hatred, mayhem is right now, that’s why this world looks the way it does right now. It’s what any authentic feminism, any authentic woman-centeredness, hell, any authentic concern for human beings, the earth, creatures, must recognize, reject, bring to an end.
Today is this year’s Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, and my two youngest are here at the office with me all day. I’ve taken some of my kids to work with me on this day each year for the past seven years, and I have many fond memories of each year. These years are coming to an end for me– my youngest will be 10 in May, and this day is for kids roughly 7-11 or 12. I’ve been actively mothering children for 36 years straight now, with no breaks, no vacations longer than a few days, so while at times I feel sentimental and wistful about the way my life is changing, I’m tired! And I am enjoying the comparative quiet of three kids at home instead of up to 11, with fewer and fewer labor- and energy-intensive responsibilities — at last! — in the years to come.
Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work® encourages girls and boys across the country to dream without gender limitations and to think imaginatively about their family, work and community lives. This national, public education program connects what children learn at school with the actual working world. Children learn that a family-friendly work environment is an employer and family issue and not just a woman’s issue. Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work helps girls and boys across the nation discover the power and possibilities associated with a balanced work and family life.
My office goes all out for this day. Employees who coordinate the year’s events order and provide goodie bags like the one above that include many items from the Ms Foundation, they give the kids a tour of the entire office, treat them to breakfast and lunch in our employee cafeteria, and take them all on an outing of some kind or treat them to a movie in the afternoon. Some years people holding all sorts of positions in the office give brief explanations of their job, how they came to have the job they have, and the meaning the job has for them. It gives me a chance to show my kids where I do my work, who my colleagues are, where I go to lunch. Each year we go to the Pike Place Market, which is unfailingly fun, with all the street musicians, mimes, farmers, fisherman, gardeners, craftspeople in the open air, selling their wares. The kids take the bus in with me and ride home with me.
I at first didn’t like it when in 2003, the event switched from “Take Our Daughters to Work,” to “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work” but I’ve changed my mind, because I think it’s important for boys to see what women, including their mothers, do in the workplace, just as it’s important for girls to see this and to imagine themselves as full participants in the marketplace, the world of work.
It makes me sad that each year, it seems that fewer and fewer children seem to be participating in this event. My hunch is this is because fewer and fewer employers support the day, encourage employees to participate, or for that matter, care about participating in the shaping of the future which takes place in the mentoring of children. I especially doubt that any woman working a minimum wage job is going to be encouraged to bring her children to work. Not a day goes by, honestly, that I don’t think about how much ground, as women, we have lost over the last couple of decades.
“Here we are Sisters in Goddess, coming together to celebrate the birth of the Goddess Movement in our times, through sacred ritual and divine style. We are coming together … old and young … women who stood with me in the beginning and women who carry the torch along side me now.
“Divine sisters, mothers, lovers … women of all shapes and sizes … all cultures … all of us with common goals, common lives and touched by the Graces who inspire us to be strong and purposeful women. We unite in common struggle, extending a hand to any woman who needs it … a shoulder to lean upon in times of difficulty … a loving hug when needed. And, good frequent deep belly laughs.
“We walk in the footsteps of the formidable women who challenged the status quo and made the lives of generations to come better. We are forever indebted to them, and come to honor and celebrate their spirits. The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries is an expression of all of this and much more. It is why this book has continued to remain in print for over 35 years. It is indeed a Holy Book.
“As women we appreciate beauty, the divine expression of the Goddess in all her aspects. We appreciate the Goddess in each other. So, join me in letting your Goddess out to play, sing and dance as we work our way through the teachings of the Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries as we rediscover our lineage.
“Joining our celebration are many of the women who have helped to forge the sacred fires of the Dianic tradition. We have come full-circle, and it’s time to reawaken unto ourselves again!”
