Feminist Peace Network

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 been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience.

“We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosom of the devasted 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 and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as the means whereby the great human family can live in peace,

And each bearing after her own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

Read more…

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Hey guess what–Playboy and Penthouse aren’t pornographic, at least according to the military:

“U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., has introduced legislation that would close a loophole in the current law that allows the sale of some sexually explicit material on military bases by lowering the threshold required to deem material “sexually explicit.”

A Department of Defense committee that reviews materials sold on bases ruled last year that magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse are not pornographic. But Broun’s Military Honor and Decency Act includes language that could make those magazines eligible for the ban.”

Not surprisingly, some of the guys in the military aren’t too pleased:”

“”We all read ‘em,” said Pfc. Paul Rubio, 31, of Bakersfield, Calif. “There are times we just read ‘em for the technological parts like the new gadgets that come out. They have good stories sometimes too.”

“Pfc. Greg Smith, 21, of Northboro, Mass., a regular Playboy reader, said soldiers should be allowed to buy nudie magazines at the exchange.

“Playboy is good entertainment while you are on the can. They have jokes and good stories,” he said.”

Seriously.

“Broun, a Marine veteran, told Newsweek recently that the magazines sold in military exchanges are partly responsible for a rise in sexual assaults in the military and other problems.

“Allowing the sale of pornography on military bases has harmed military men and women by: escalating the number of violent, sexual crimes; feeding a base addiction; eroding the family as the primary building block of society; and denigrating the moral standing of our troops both here and abroad,” Broun says on his Web site.”

And here’s some interesting numbers:

“Army and Air Force Exchange service public relations manager Judd Anstey said AAFES sold $231,000 worth of Penthouse, Playboy and Playgirl magazines in Europe last year.

“Sales of these three titles account for 2.7 percent of total European magazine sales ($8.5 million) at AAFES facilities,” he said.

The sales accounted for 0.5 percent of worldwide AAFES magazine sales of $46.4
million, he said.”

That’s your tax dollars at work, folks.

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Yes I know, the title to this post is grammatically challenged, merely a nod to W’s “Is our children learning” line. But seriously, whatever happened to teaching reading, writing and ‘rithmatic???

“The first high school dedicated to preparing students for the front lines in the Nation’s homeland security has gone from theory to planning in Wilmington.

Curriculum choices for students, who are to be called Cadets, range from SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) through prison guard, water rescue, paramedic, fireman, professional demolition and emergency response operator, according to a Board statement.

To meet personal curriculum goals, all physically capable cadets are to attend a daily after-school exercise program. In addition, two hours of after-school sports or homeland security training will be available for cadet volunteers.”

I can just see the extra-credit project on waterboarding now…
.

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Murder Attempt Against Puntland’s Last Woman TV Presenter
Reporters sans Frontières
PRESS RELEASE
7 May 2008

Reporters Without Borders said today it was disgusted by a murder attempt against Bisharo Mohammed Waeys, celebrated presenter on the privately-owned Eastern Television Network (ETN), on 4 May, the last woman working openly as a journalist in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, north-eastern Somalia.Bisharo Mohammed Waeys, who presents a popular talk show onto which she invites singers from the region, was driving to her home in Bossasso, when she came under fire from several armed men and only escaped by accelerating away fast, it was reported by the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), partner organisation in Somalia of Reporters Without Borders. The next day she received two text messages threatening to kill her if she did not stop her entertainment programme on ENT.

Read more…

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There is an AP story in my local paper this morning that says this about Mrs. Bush, and I quote:

“She  blistered military leaders…as being “very inept” for repressing citizens and decimating an economy.”

Unfortunately she was referring to Mynamar, not the U.S.

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Our list of influential women leaders is growing, here is the updated list, please note that if a submitted name is already on the Time list, then I didn’t include it here:

1. Barbara Brenner–Breast Cancer Action
2. Jennifer Drew–English activist working to highlight misogynist media portrayals of sexual assault.
3. Cathy Webster–1000 Grandmothers
4. Geena Davis
5. Leuren Moret and Helen Caldicott for raising awareness about the dangers of nuclear power and depleted uranium
6. Lilly Ledbetter
7. Amma
8. Alice Walker
9. Pema Chodron—Buddhist Monk, author
10. Kara Walker–artist
11. Jane Roberts–co-founder of 34 Million Friends of UNFPA
12. Yanar Mohammed–Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq
13. Medea Benjamin–Code Pink
14. Doris ‘Granny D’ Haddock
15. The women’s organizations in Okinanwa that are speaking out against the handling of sexual assaults committed by US military personnel
16. The Myannmar nuns and other women who marched with the monks but got almost no notice
17. Cynthia McKinney–presumptive nominee for president of the Green Party
18. Riane Eisler
19. Frances Moore Lappe
20. Malalai Joya
21. Wangari Maathai
22. Helen Thomas
23. Amy Goodman
24. Starhawk
25. Michele Batchelet
26. Dolores Huerta
27. Laurie David (environmentalist)
28. Marian Wright Edelman (Children’s Defense Fund)
29. Thelma Golden (museum curator)
30. Barbara Ehrenreich
31. Cecile Richards (PP of America)
32. Arundhati Roy (author, activist)
33. Michiko Kakutani (top NYT book reviewer)
34. Roman Catholic Womenpriests (POWERFUL international group of women)
35. Shirley Franklin (mayor of Atlanta)
36. Doris Lessing (only the 11th woman to win the Nobel prize for literature)
37. Toni Morrison
38. Rigoberta Menchu Tum
39. Grace Lee Boggs
40. Charlotte Bunch
41. Mary Robinson
42. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (MI)
43. Gov. Jennifer Granholm (MI)
44. Laila Ali (boxer)
45. Danica Patrick (racecar driver; recently the first female IndyCar winner in history)
46. My mother, your mother, and all the women who teach in classrooms everywhere–if they aren’t influential, somebody needs to explain to me the definition of that word!

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As is always the case in discussing aid in the aftermath of natural disasters, the first concern that we have is getting the aid to those who need it most, and that is almost always women and children.  We will post  information on efforts directed specifically for that purpose in Myanmar as we become aware of them.

“Women and children make up more than 60 per cent of Myanmar’s population, and are likely to be prominent among those affected. Experience shows that children are less able to physically defend themselves against such forces of nature and are highly vulnerable to the dangers that follow in their wake.

“Survivors of Cyclone Nargis are in urgent need of emergency supplies to help ensure they have clean water, food and shelter,” said Nigel Fisher, President and CEO, UNICEF Canada. “A rapid response will be critical to saving lives. We are asking Canadians to give generously and support UNICEF’s work now to help children and their communities in southern Myanmar.”

To support UNICEF’s work in helping to save the lives of women and children affected by this cyclone, please call 1-877-955-3111 or visit www.unicef.ca.”

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Anna Greer has a very thought-provoking piece in Wo! Magazine about the use of the passive voice in describing gender-based violence. She writes:

“One of the first things journalism students learn is to avoid the passive voice. So, you have to wonder why journalists are drawn to using passive voice when the subject of their article is male violence against women. What classically happens is that the actors in these stories are sidelined and we’re left with the women who get raped, sexually harassed, or beaten.”

“A recent story in the Sydney Morning Herald was a perfect example of passive voice subverting the object/subject relationship. ‘Don’t Want to Be Harassed? Stop Acting Like a Man’ read the headline. The article reported on a Canadian study which found that, in the workplace, men were more likely to sexually harass women who didn’t conform to traditional gender roles. In the process, it used passive voice to shift blame from the perpetrators of sexual harassment and placed it squarely on the shoulders of the victims.”

“The use of passive voice in articles such as this, subconsciously shapes the way people view violence against women. It is an insidious and unquestioned practice. In the passive voice version of the above story, men apparently don’t harass and intimidate women, women just run around getting themselves harassed. If active voice had been used, would the same conclusions be drawn? Would it have the same headline? No.”

“This is not merely an isolated incident or slip of the sub-editor’s metaphorical knife. It is a wide-spread practice - in news articles on the subject of rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment and domestic violence - to have the perpetrators painted out of the picture, either partly or completely.

Positioning a male abuser as the actor in a news article on sexual assault isn’t accusing all men of being abusers, just as identifying women as victims doesn’t imply that all women have suffered from sexual harassment or intimidation in the workplace. But let’s be real here. Men are the overwhelming majority of perpetrators of violence against women — as they are the overwhelming majority of perpetrators of violence against men, for that matter. And using the passive voice in articles on gendered violence positions female victims as somehow the root of the problem. It shifts the responsibility and blame from the actor to the person on the receiving end of the abuse.”

“When women are identified as the victims of gender-motivated violence and intimidation, the perpetrators must be identified as the actors. The use of passive voice cloaks this reality. Let’s place the blame where it belongs — squarely on the shoulders of the abusers.”

Kudos to Greer for totally nailing it. We cannot hope to end gendered violence until we accurately report and name what is happening and like UK activist Jennifer Drew, Greer is absolutely right that we have to place the blame on the perpetrators, not the victims.

Filed under: Uncategorized, Misogyny, Gender-Based Violence, Media | 1 Comment »

Well here it is, the opening salvo of the “It’s About Time” list of influential women that Time should have included in their list of 100 influential leaders.  We need more names!  Let’s make it clear that far more than 25% of the influential people on this planet happen to be women.  By perpetuating the diminishing of women’s leadership and influence, Time deprives us of valuable insights and contributes to the toxic perception that the lives and work of women is less important than the contributions of men.

1. Barbara Brenner–Breast Cancer Action
2. Jennifer Drew–English activist working to highlight misogynist media portrayals of sexual assault.
3. Cathy Webster–1000 Grandmothers
4. Geena Davis
5. Leuren Moret and Helen Caldicott for raising awareness about the dangers of nuclear power and depleted uranium
6. Lilly Ledbetter
7. Amma
8. Alice Walker
9. Pema Chodron—Buddhist Monk, author
10. Kara Walker–artist
11. Jane Roberts–co-founder of 34 Million Friends of UNFPA
12. Yanar Mohammed–Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq
13. Medea Benjamin–Code Pink
14. Doris ‘Granny D’ Haddock
15. The women’s organizations in Okinanwa that are speaking out against the handling of sexual assaults committed by US military personnel
16. The Myannmar nuns and other women who marched with the monks but got almost no notice
17. Cynthia McKinney–presumptive nominee for president of the Green Party
18. Riane Eisler
19. Frances Moore Lappe
20. Malalai Joya
21. Wangari Maathai
22. Helen Thomas
23. Amy Goodman
24. Starhawk
25. My mother, your mother, and all the women who teach in classrooms everywhere–if they aren’t influential, somebody needs to explain to me the definition of that word!

And it isn’t just Time that needs to see this list.  Echidne reports that the UK Telegraph just pulled the same stunt with it’s list of top 10 important people who all happen to be male and white.

Keep sending those names in, this list needs to get MUCH longer!

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From Bev Harris at Black Box Voting:

“In April 2008 when Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita announced the release of “record high” voter registration rolls, with 4.3 million voters set to vote in the Tuesday May 6 primary, he didn’t mention that a whopping 1,134,427 voter registrations have been cancelled.

Now, the voter rolls are supposed to be tidied up prior to each election. Indiana’s last general election was in Nov. 2006, and they have had a slew of special and general elections since then. So how have 1.1 million voters — 26 percent of the current statewide list — escaped the regularly scheduled voter registration cleanup squads? Who are these million voters and where do they come from?

One quarter-million of them come from just two northwestern Indiana counties: Lake and Porter. Lake County reports purging 137,164 voters and neighboring Porter County cancelled out 124,958 voters.

Lake County, the home of Gary, Indiana, has spawned the Jackson Five and a great old musical (The Music Man) and and has been referred to as “the second most liberal county in America.” Lake County has one of the heaviest concentrations of African-American voters that you’ll find anywhere in the USA.

Nearby Porter County, the home of Valparaiso, is 95% white and went solidly for Bush in the 2004 election. It also has a lot of college kids.

For whatever reason, these two counties had … what … massive data entry problems? Exceptionally messy records? Lots of dead people who climbed back into their graves? Or will we see a lot of disappointed voters on Tuesday, when they perhaps learn that they were among the lucky million people who got purged?”

More than 1 million purged–this is democracy in action??  It gets worse, seems there is a little problem with the voting machines too…

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