men

I confess. 

I am a gang member. 

I have benefitted from my membership in this gang, all my life.  Everything in my life has come to me easier than it has for most of the planet, because I belong to this gang.  My clothes, food, shelter, luxuries and freedom are the spoils of my membership.  We live a life of ease, gluttony, vanity and waste built on the backs of oppression, deceit and cruelty.

We are a gang that brutally oppresses half of the world's population with rape, murder, starvation, torture, disease, forced and unpaid labor, humiliation, lack of education and food and shelter.  The mother of almost every child on the planet is the target of our oppression - controlled by words, weapons & fear and deprived of a voice or respect as human - as equal.

This gang also fights among its own ranks.  The gang at the top of this pyramid of brutality, ignorance and brutality is run by several thousand gang members who use raping, pillaging, murder and destroying the entire planet to luxuriate in and hoard the wealth of the planet.  For every bite of food we eat, thousands of people die of starvation.

The annals of history are written by this gang, obliterating the thoughts, words and lives of all foes, vanquished or living.  For four thousand years we have forged the planet around us into instruments of war, torture, enslavement and despair.  We have roamed the surface of the planet in packs, armies and alone in dark alleys with an unquenchable thirst for the blood of our fellow humans.  Those whom we do not kill outright, we eliminate in history, we remove their names from their own stories and place the names we choose to honor in their places.

By Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Sep 22, 2010 (IPS) - Men representing an array of sexual identifications have organised in Cuba to defend sexual rights and promote respect for "other masculinities," with the belief that greater visibility is needed to achieve true social change and acceptance.

Hombres por la Diversidad (HxD, Men for Diversity), a group "for the right to free sexual identity," promotes social transformation and "works along the lines of education and advocacy for sexual and reproductive rights," coordinator Alberto Roque told IPS.

HxD stands out in this socialist-run Caribbean nation for spreading the human rights focus to other associations and groups dealing with related issues.

The group tries to maintain a balance between the institutional world and autonomy, which can be a challenge for citizen initiatives in Cuba.

Although it has offices at the government's National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX), making the most of "organisational support and space provided by the institution," HxD maintains its own objectives, said Roque.

The immediate goals, he went on, are to consolidate as an organisation, become a presence on Internet-based social networks, participate in the annual events of International Day Against Homophobia (May 17), and organise a national symposium on sexual rights, which would involve individuals and groups with similar aims.

Created for Bitch Magazine's Mad World Virtual Symposium: http://bitchmagazine.org/blogs/mad-world

Marketers are increasingly using Retro Sexism to sell products. This form of advertising uses irony and humour as a way to distance itself from the sexist and/or racist representations and stereotypes they perpetuate.

Retro Sexism (n.): Modern attitudes and behaviors that mimic or glorify sexist aspects of the past, often in an ironic way.

More info and links available at www.feministfrequency.com

(h/t jaded16)

Have you ever been coerced into sex with someone?  Have you ever coerced someone for sex? 

If so, you may have had your line crossed or crossed someone else's.

For those unaware of the film, "The Line" is about a woman (in this case, the filmmaker herself) who is raped and her efforts to confront her attacker.  The film also examines our cultural prejudices against rapists and those who are raped.

The expectations and judgments we place on others and ultimately ourselves are examined and questioned as Nancy views the impact of cultural projections arising from gender, power, language and identity. 

Running through all this is the ideas of consent and communication.  Where, when, what & how a person speaks to indicate their line of consent / no consent and this place is "The Line" that the film addresses. 

We all know what we are comfortable with and have some idea of what we'll experiment with and we probably know the things we're not comfortable with.  These things can alter over time, but the issue in this film is when a person feels like saying "No", do they have the language and the ability to say so?.  Social stereotypes may inform a person that they don't have the right to say no.  Or, they may feel that they "owe " compliance to someone because they said "yes" before or some other reason.  Many of us will have different answers to the same situation at different points in our lives.  But, for many people their line gets crossed and they are left with no idea of what happened or how to deal with it.

This film is a great tool for individuals of any sex, gender, age or class to view as a means to understanding their participation in the rape elements of our shared cultures.  I recommend it highly. 

The target audience is people wishing to understand boundaries and consent.  It is also being appled as a tool for educators, sex educators, activists and organizations or people working with gender based violence.