gwytherinn.com

This is a wonderful piece of news:

Argentina: Non-Sexist Language for Reporters

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 21 (IPS) - An organisation of over 100 journalists in Argentina has drawn up ten “commandments” for news coverage of gender-based crimes, which include avoiding expressions like “crime of passion” and incorporating terms like “femicide.”

The document, by the Argentine Network of Journalists for Non-Sexist Communication (PAR), has already been debated in forums and delivered to social and cultural associations and editorial offices. It will be publicly launched on Nov. 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Its aim is to combat “invisible discrimination, which is often unintentional, but occurs because it has become natural in daily life,” Liliana Hendel, a psychologist and journalist for the subscription television news channel Todo Noticias, and one of the authors of the ten commandments, or decalogue, told IPS.

“We will uproot from our work the term ‘crime of passion’ to refer to murders of women who are victims of gender violence. Crimes of passion do not exist,” says item three of the document, for example.

According to Hendel, “to call a murder a crime of passion is to presuppose that it is a consequence of love, because ‘he loved her too much,’ which distances it from the concept of crime.”

She added that the idea of “love-sickness” hides the reality of a criminal who abuses power, to the extent that he owns a woman’s life and can kill her.” Statistics quoted by PAR indicate that in 99 percent of murders committed by spouses, lovers or partners, women are the victims.

The Network proposes terms like “femicide” (murders of women) or “feminicide” (crimes of humanity against women just because they are women). Other phrases recommended by feminist movements are “violence against women,” “gender-based violence” and “sexist violence.”

Consultation of female sources is stressed as a key to avoiding gender discrimination.

“Whether or not we are writing about gender issues, it is important to consult women lawyers, historians and women’s groups about their views on events, which will inexorably help us to see what we cannot see because it seems so natural,” Hendel said.

Among other evidence for sexism in news coverage, PAR mentions “detailed descriptions of what a woman was wearing or, in the case of murders committed by women, emphatic indignation because they go against ‘maternal instinct,’ which is a way of sacralising motherhood.”

“There is an exaggeration of the association between motherhood and womanhood, and an underlying need for women to be good,” the journalist said.

I haven’t had much time for the blog lately and I just found out a couple days ago that it’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month! Here is an article I read a long time ago thanks to Monika at The Curious Escapades of Dee-Dee the Cat. Bold is my formatting!!!

ETA: I’m sad to realize that I probably didn’t find out from most of the blogs I read about one of October’s themes because they’re always covering issues concerning domestic violence and rape. It’s not exactly an issue that, if properly dealt with, would have an awareness month. (And the same can be said of some of the other themes as well.)

Why Doesn’t She Leave?

by Marie De Santis - Women’s Justice Center

There’s a seemingly simple little exercise we’ve done dozens of times at workshops on violence against women. The usual responses, however, are anything but simple. They’re confounding and cause for concern.

Recently we repeated the exercise with a conference room full of 70 social workers, advocates, therapists, and mental health workers. “Why don’t some domestic violence victims leave the relationship,” we ask? “Call out the reasons!”

The answers, as always, come fast and freely. “Because she doesn’t think she can make it on her own.” “Not enough money to feed the children.” “She feels obligated to her marital vows.” “It’s learned helplessness.” “She doesn’t believe she deserves better.” “She doesn’t know where to go.” “She wants the children to have a father.” etc.

I jot down the familiar list until the group exhausts their thoughts. And there, again, is the enigma. How, at this date, with this group, - with almost every group - do so many miss the obvious? To be sure there’s truth and need for remedy in every reason given. But the one thing that should top the list, the thing that freezes so many women in place, is not even mentioned at all.

Women often don’t leave domestic violence because they know that when they do leave the danger of more severe violence increases dramatically. Violence, and the sheer terror of it, is one of the principle reasons women don’t leave. And the women are right!

The women know these dangers. They know them because they’ve already experienced the violent responses when they’ve attempted to assert themselves, even minimally, within the relationship. They know because the perpetrators have usually threatened precisely what they intend to if she does try to leave.

“Instead of Helping Me, They Sunk Me Even More”

The women also know these dangers are heightened still more because so many officials, first responders, and courts are also in denial of the gravity of her situation. And she’s right again. Despite the modern-day rhetoric about treating domestic violence seriously, the reality is that the critical protections she needs when leaving are still as precarious and unpredictable as a roll of the dice. One responder may help effectively. The next may ignore, mock, underestimate, misdiagnose, walk away, blame her, take her kids, shunt her into social services, arrest her, send her to counseling, or one way or another refuse to implement real power on her behalf, abandoning her to a perpetrator who is now more enraged than ever.

The paths leading up to so many domestic violence homicides are paved with officials’ failures to protect. Just weeks before she was murdered by her estranged husband, Maria hauntingly summed up her own, and so many others’ experiences with officials. “Instead of helping me,” she said, “They sunk me even more.”

You can work tirelessly and compassionately to social work, counsel, and support the victim. But if you ignore this critical piece of making sure the system puts failsafe brakes on the perpetrator and his violence, it will be for naught. The perpetrator will continue to stalk and terrorize or worse. The victim will still be trapped in the violent relationship no matter where she has moved and how much independence she has attained. In fact, the freer she is, the angrier he gets.

And if you look just a little closer, you’ll see that for domestic violence victims there really is no such thing as leaving, or escaping, until the system does, in fact, step up and effectively stop the perpetrator. There is no Mason Dixon line over which women can run and escape and be home free. The perpetrators can and do hunt her down anywhere.

Domestic Violence! Not ‘Domesticated Violence’, nor ‘Violence Lite’!

It’s interesting. When you do the same exercise, but merely shift to other forms of violent relationships, a group’s responses are dramatically different. “Why doesn’t the field slave,” for example, “Run away from the plantation in the middle of the night while the master sleeps?” The answers are immediate and unequivocal. “Because the slaves know they’ll get hunted down.” “Because they know if they’re caught they’ll get beaten like never before.” “Because they stand a good chance of getting killed.”

The first answers out are never ‘learned helplessness’, ‘low self esteem’, or ‘not enough money’ even though there’s no question these same psycho-social factors are just as much at work. In fact, if one were to lead off their explanations as to ‘why slaves don’t leave’ with the ‘learned helplessness’ or ‘not enough money’ aspect, the insult of it would ring perfectly clear.

Whether you ask the question in regard to slaves, prisoners of war, kidnap victims, concentration camp captives, or residents of violent regimes, etc., the horrific dynamics and dangers of attempting to escape are well understood by everyone. Some victims of these violent relationships do, in fact, make a run for it. Some succeed. Some are killed. Some are recaptured and punished unmercifully.

Most victims, however, never go beyond an initial evaluation of the risks. The obvious dangers are just too great. They stay. Violence works. Violence, and the sheer terrorizing threat of it, has always, everywhere, worked better than anything else to keep victims compliant and pinned in place.

So why the glaring blind spot in regard to domestic violence victims? Why are women denied even the validation of the dangerous dynamics of her dilemma? Why do so many people still hold a view, as cloaked as it may be in paternal tones, that is more in sync with the perpetrator’s stance than with the victim’s? The view that the problem rests with her. That it’s she that needs to be propped up and fixed.

As if this violence that plagues women around the world is a ‘domesticated violence’, or ‘violence lite’!

The Patriarchy Still Rules! And Still Needs to be Upended!

The glaring blind spot is rooted deep in the self-preservation mechanisms of patriarchal rule. If the violent repression of women were to be recognized on a par with other violent repressions it would require nothing short of upending the missions of law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, and service organizations, and not just the adjustment of rhetoric we have now. The male-dominated power structure resists implementing its real powers on behalf of women in order to preserve the power for itself. That’s fairly obvious.

But what about the blind spot of so many social workers, advocates, and therapists? Those who care about the women, and dedicate their lives to helping them? Perhaps it’s one more layer of the battered women’s syndrome that needs to be exposed. Because if we ourselves truly recognize the gravity of women’s plight, we, too, have to move beyond the safety zones of the nurturing, supportive roles we find so comfortable.

We will be compelled to step out, challenge, watchdog, fight, demand, and make sure that the powerful, male-dominated institutions are, in fact, upended, and that they, indeed, begin to implement their full powers on behalf of women, and against the perpetrators. Only then will domestic violence victims truly have a real choice to leave.

At this point I’m undecided about whether I’ll be voting Democrat or Green. But I found this via Diary of an Anxious Black Woman - Because We All Need Reassurance Again From Michelle Obama: Be Not Afraid and I think it pretty amazing.

Malalai Kakar - “Malalai Kakar, prominent Afghan policewoman. Murdered in Kandahar” - AFP - From the article Women Who Took on the Taliban - and Lost (I am not sure how to cite an AP photo, so gave as much info as possible - but will continue to look for the proper way.)

Malalai Kakar was a police officer in Afghanistan murdered by the Taliban approximately 2 weeks ago. (Couldn’t find an exact date.) I suppose you can say that the US stint in Afghanistan has been a huge success if you think that violence against women and girls and the resurgence of the Taliban is of no consequence. All of these articles about Kakar are worth reading in full, but I’ve excerpted many of them here. Bold formatting is mine.

The first time I saw Malalai Kakar was in Kandahar city, at a women’s conference organised by a group of spirited young Afghan-Americans determined to give the Taliban a symbolic bloody nose in their spiritual homeland.

It was the autumn of 2003 and, as the country’s only policewoman, Kakar was already a celebrity. She walked into the room wearing a blue burqa and, as she began unloading her things, a pistol emerged from underneath the traditional garment, held in a hand graced by immaculate, red fingernails.

It was an arresting, symbolic image.

‘Just another woman who can be killed.’ - Hamida Ghafour

In an attack claimed by the Taliban, two gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed Afghanistan’s most high-profile female police officer on Sunday as she prepared to leave for work in the southern city of Kandahar. The police in the city said she died instantly from gunshot wounds to her head. Her 18-year-old son, driving her car, was seriously wounded and taken to the hospital.

The police officer, Malalai Kakar, who was in her mid-40s with six children, was an iconic figure among women’s groups in Afghanistan and abroad. Often profiled in the Afghan and foreign news media, she was one of the leading totems for the wider freedoms gained by women when the Taliban, with their repressive policies toward women, were ousted from power by an American-led coalition in 2001.

The attack was the latest in a wave of attacks on women across Afghanistan for which the Taliban have claimed responsibility. After scattering in the wake of the 2001 offensive, the Islamic militants have regrouped over the past two years.

“We killed Malalai Kakar,” a Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, told the news service Agence France-Presse in a telephone call.

Ms. Kakar, with the rank of captain, was head of Kandahar’s department of crimes against women. She joined the police in the city in 1982, following in the footsteps of her father and brothers, but was forced out after the Taliban captured Kandahar in the mid-1990s and barred all women from working.

Taliban Claim Responsibility in Killing of Key Female Afghan Police Officer - John F. Burns

Commander Kakar, 40, knew her work made her a Taliban target. She led a unit of 10 policewomen specialising in domestic violence cases. She was uncompromising with suspected abusers, men who in the past had relied on male police officers to turn a blind eye.

“I’ve been accused of being rough with husbands who beat up their wives” she said. “But I’m angry, we try to apply the law in the right way and the constitution is supposed to protect women’s rights.”

Women who took on the Taliban - and Lost - This article elaborates on 3 of the 5 women in public life they had interviewed when the Taliban was ousted who have since been assassinated. Highly recommended read. (As are all the articles.)

Yesterday, the Taliban claimed responsibility for Kakar’s killing, saying she had been a long-term target. In a perverse nod to gender equality, in killing her, they acknowledged that an Afghan woman can be as deadly an enemy as any man.

Unusual as she clearly was, Malalai Kakar was also part of a long-standing tradition of Afghan women who “outman” their men in bravery. These are women who take sides in wars, taking up arms for or against the government. In the past, such women used to be mainly the stuff of legends. They were admired and held up as role models but not feared, since they weren’t real.

Early Afghan historical works are full of such women. Reminiscent of the epic German poem the Nibelungenlied, these tales of warriors, horses and fortresses feature young women such as Shah Bori, described as a girl with a taste for male clothing and horse riding. She is said to have liked living the life of a warrior, refusing for a long time to get married. She is also said to have died fighting the troops of King Babur, in the 16th century.

Then there’s Nazauna, who, legend has it, single-handedly protected the Zabol fortress with her sword; that was in the 18th century. And in the 19th century, there was the original Malalai, after whom Malalai Kakar was named: Malalai of Maiwand, who turned her headscarf into a banner and led a successful rebellion against the British.

The Fighting Women of Afghanistan by Nushin Arbabzadah

Kandahar’s Woman Detective

I worked very briefly on helping to design an awareness campaign during my time at Human Rights Watch about the Taliban targeting girls’ schools. And yet the dominant narrative seemed to be how much of a success the US tour in Afghanistan was. Not so fast.

I guess they’re in a better position to do that now that there’s a brigade touring US soil.

Click here for dates and times to see Battle in Seattle.

I am somewhat excited about a new film coming out called Battle in Seattle - it is a reenactment of the protests that went on against the World Trade Organization when they came to Seattle in 1999. It was a pivotal moment in that it showed the strength and voice of the anti-globalization movement. (The way the media covered the protests is a much different story - I did a speech about how this seems to be a pivotal point in the way the media began to cover protests and its intended impact on public opinion. Perhaps I’ll turn it into a post. The Solnit article linked at the bottom goes nicely into detail about it though.)

On the other hand, after having viewed the trailer my excitement has been tempered by a hunch concerning how they covered some of the factions of protesters - and sure enough found a bit of commentary on it at the Wiki:

Despite director Stuart Townsend’s stated intention of portraying the events of protest accurately, the film was criticized by anarchist collective CrimethInc. for what they saw as its sensationalistic portrayal of events.[7] In a pamphlet titled “And What About Tomorrow?”, the collective allege that the protests were characterized in the film as an isolated spontaneous uprising in which a “small fringe group” of black bloc anarchists “stole the show”, whereas CrimethInc. contend that “anarchists were involved in all different aspects of the protests” including nonviolent organization and Food Not Bombs, and credit the adoption of anarchist direct action tactics with the success of the uprising.[7] A review published by Anarkismo praised the film as “clearly well-researched”, citing the pacing and general narrative as quite accurate, but criticized the presentation of anarchist politics as one-dimensional and a caricature.[8]

The link to the pamplet (PDF) - And What About Tomorrow?

And a web site: Real Battle in Seattle

The story of resistance to the WTO in Seattle in ‘99 is one of how people power can change the world. It’s a dangerous example for the elites and a powerful one for people. That’s why for eight years, the corporate media, governments, and their police have waged a dis-information campaign about Seattle ‘99.

In fall ‘08, a major motion picture, “Battle in Seattle,” will be seen across North America. It’s a huge improvement over corporate media lies, but won’t tell the motives or thinking of the people who shutdown the WTO. Only we can do that.

Stories are how we understand the world and thus shape the future- and the story of Seattle ‘99 shapes what people think of protest, corporate globalization and repression. It’s time that we in the social movements tell our own stories, reclaim our own histories, and publicly fight damaging myths past and present. This website is doing just that!

An excerpt from David Solnit’s article, The Battle for Reality

My stomach clenched the first time I heard that actor Stuart Townsend was making a mainstream movie about the 1999 shutdown of the WTO ministerial meetings, Battle in Seattle.

I was an on-the-ground organizer in Seattle, and for me and many other activists, the event was a high point in our social change work. It was a moment when organized resistance became a genuine popular uprising, successfully shutting down the opening day of the WTO meeting, taking over the downtown core of a major American city, and contributing to the collapse of negotiations that would have increased poverty, destruction, and misery around the world.

But for years, that story has been distorted. In mainstream media, the Seattle protesters have been portrayed either as violent extremists or as irrelevant “flat-earth advocates … and yuppies looking for their 1960s fix” as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman put it.

The story of Seattle has itself become a battleground, one where activists fight the lies and disinformation used to stoke public fears and justify repression against grassroots movements across the U.S.

Now Townsend wanted to tell our story, and I wondered if he’d do any better.

What would a multimillion-dollar Hollywood-star-studded film tell Americans about the sometimes life-or-death struggle against trade policies that threatened to wreck local economies and dismantle environmental protections the world over? Would it tell about the extraordinary power of 50,000 ordinary people in Seattle and their millions of counterparts around the world to demand a just and democratic world—or repeat media myths about riots and violence that activists had fought so long to change?
——
Widespread amnesia about the history of movements and rebellion is part of what has made grassroots organizing in the U.S. so difficult. Many activists have romanticized Seattle as a semi-spontaneous rebellion that arose as if by luck. This ignores the key strategizing, mass mobilizing, networking, education, and alliance-building that made Seattle possible. Battle in Seattle’s greatest contribution may be that it reminds us of this and spurs us to action.

For more on the impact of free trade, I highly recommend the documentary Life and Debt. My only gripe is that it desperately needs subtitles. Argh!

And on a side note, I’m excited to see !!three!! actresses I’ve really enjoyed watching play strong characters in other things - Connie Nielson, Michelle Rodriquez and Charlize Theron.

A bit of good news before the bad - I chose Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine as my staff pick at the book store but we can’t get any more copies at the moment because it’s sold out!! It is in the process of being reprinted. This made me so happy to hear!! I haven’t seen it get on the bestseller list as a paperback yet. (I may be wrong about that though.)

But now, a number of things I’ve come across recently that I’ve wanted to call attention to -
 
Army Unit to Deploy in October for Domestic Operations - Hat tip to dark daughta for calling my attention to this. Police state, anyone?

Beginning in October, the Army plans to station an active unit inside the United States for the first time to serve as an on-call federal response in times of emergency. The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent thirty-five of the last sixty months in Iraq, but now the unit is training for domestic operations. The unit will soon be under the day-to-day control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The Army Times reports this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to Northern Command. The paper says the Army unit may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. The soldiers are learning to use so-called nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals and crowds.

 
That the nomination of Obama is the result of rampant fraud. Hat tip to Dr. Socks at Reclusive Leftist on this, who has also been challenging my line of thinking concerning Palin. (That’s not to say I’m suddenly supporting a McCain/Palin ticket - but it’s certainly helping me to sort out how internalized misogyny may be skewing my views towards her.)
 
I don’t know what to think about this, but I’m feeling incredibly dismayed. From Lynette Long’s CaucusAnalysis, dedicated to studying the possibility of fraud:

As I write this, the Democratic Party is poised to formally nominate Barack Obama as its candidate for President of the United States.

It’s the triumph of fraud.

I’ve spent the past two months immersed in data from the 2008 Democratic caucuses. After studying the procedures and results from all fourteen caucus states, interviewing dozens of witnesses, and reviewing hundreds of personal stories, my conclusion is that the Obama campaign willfully and intentionally defrauded the American public by systematically undermining the caucus process.

 
I’m surprised about how little people I talked to today know about this one - that the McCain campaign got the style of tonight’s VP debate changed.

From the New York Times:

At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.

McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive.

——

McCain advisers said they were only somewhat concerned about Ms. Palin’s debating skills compared with those of Mr. Biden, who has served six terms in the Senate, or about his chances of tripping her up. Instead, they say, they wanted Ms. Palin to have opportunities to present Mr. McCain’s positions, rather than spending time talking about her experience or playing defense