Bits and bobs from a British glasses-wearing, sweary, fat, disabled, atheist ex-Catholic, anti-capitalist, pacifist feminist lesbian with eclectic tastes.
I normally blog at incurable-hippie.blogspot.com.
I want to march because I want to be able to walk home at night without being afraid of rape. I want to march because I am fed up of being judged based on how I dress. I want to march because I have had three men force themselves upon me in some way or other and each time I left blaming myself. I want to march because I cannot leave the house without being harassed by several men. I want to march because I feel the need to protest to these strangers that I am a lesbian in the hope they will leave me alone (even though I am actually bisexual, I am just scared of them). I want to march because I have been followed down the street by the same men who insist I “just need a good cock”. I want to march because my parents tell me that “if [I] dress like a slut, then [I am] asking for it”. I want to march because I believe that I am the only one with the rights to my body. I want to march because I have many male friends who restore my faith in the male gender, but do not understand that I have to think about rape on a daily basis. I want to march against every man who thinks that grabbing girls on the street outside clubs is in any way acceptable. I want to march for the male victims who suffer in silence. I want to march for every single time I have been terrified of rape. I want to march because I am glad I have not had a worse experience than my current ones. I want to march in case one day I do.
—Kitty, 18 (via slutmeansspeakup)
SlutWalk London 2012 will be in September!
SlutWalk London: the radical notion that nobody deserves to be raped.
We want to make this year’s rally bigger and better than last year! We hope you will all join us in September to protest the silencing of our voices, the repression of our choices and the violence against our bodies.
This year we will be back even louder than before!
Watch this space for further details, our aims for 2012 and news!
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Some of my favorite photos from Slutwalk Greensboro on Saturday. Photo credit for all: Chelsea Parker.
Slutwalk Burlington went amazingly! Thank you to everyone who came and supported.
If you’d like to see more photos, or upload your own, visit our flickr group:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/slutwalkburlington/
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU’RE UNDER ATTACK?
STAND UP FIGHT BACK.
I’ve always understood the word ‘slut’ to mean a woman who freely enjoys her own sexuality in any way she wants to; undisturbed by other people’s wishes for her behaviour. Sexual desire originates in her and is directed by her. In that sense it is a word well worth retaining.
—Alice Walker (via subconciousevolution)
![sexxxisbeautiful:
[A white femme-presenting person holds a pink sign with black lettering. It reads: The only thing I’m asking for is a revolution”]
FUCK. YES.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpxxp1RD951qej88fo1_500.jpg)
[A white femme-presenting person holds a pink sign with black lettering. It reads: The only thing I’m asking for is a revolution”]
FUCK. YES.
(Source: femmefury)
Woman is the “N” of the World?
In 1969, Yoko Ono coinded the term and I quote “Woman is the N****R of the World.” Shortly thereafter, she and her husband, the late John Lennon, wrote and he recorded a song with that same title.
According to Wikipedia (which is ALWAYS questionable), at that time (don’t know where they would stand today), Dick Gregory and Ron Dellums defended the song…
Several Black feminists, including Pearl Cleage, challenged Yoko Ono’s racist (to Black women) statement. “If Woman is the “N” of the World, what does that make Black Women, the “N, N” of the World?”
Fast forward 42-years later from when it was originally coined, a White woman decides to create and carry a placard of the quote to SlutWalk NYC.
I’ve been informed that one of the (Black) women SlutWalk NYC organizers asked the woman to take her placard down. She did. However, not before there were many photographs taken….
Now, my question is why did it take a Black woman organizer to ask her to take it down. What about ALL of the White women captured in this photograph. They didn’t find this sign offensive? Paraphrasing Sojourner Truth “Ain’t I A Woman (too!)?”
ERADICATING RACISM SHOULD NOT BE THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY OF PEOPLE OF COLOR.
How can so many White feminists be absolutely clear about the responsibility of ALL MEN TO END heterosexual violence perpetrated against women; and yet turn a blind eye to THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO END racism.
Is Sisterhood Global? This picture says NO! very loudly and very clearly.
The fact that this quote originates from a woman of color ~ Yoko Ono, really underscores the work that we, women of color, must do with each other to educate each other about our respective herstories. This photograph also underscores the imperative need for hardcore inter-racial dialogues amongst all of us in these complicated movements to address gender-based violence in all of our non-monolithic communities.
Co-signing with my Sister Andrea Plaid, that at the fundamental level this photograph speaks to the very sobering reality that there is a level of acceptable racism going on within (some?) SlutWalkS (not a monolith).
There is something deeply uncanny, that in 2011, this White woman would think it was OK to create and carry a sigh with the “N” word at a SlutWalk. What on earth was she thinking? Who in the United States of Ameri-KKK-a doesn’t know that the “N” word is NOT okay to use, most especially if you’re not Black.
The StruggleS continue…
![lucypaw:
Me with my sign at Slutwalk DC yesterday. I was dressed more conservatively when I was sexually assaulted. Like it matters.
[Image description: Femme in a strapless dress holding a yellow posterboard sign that says: ‘My dressing conservatively DIDN’T stop him!’]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpxvnaVSWs1qf134uo1_500.jpg)
Me with my sign at Slutwalk DC yesterday. I was dressed more conservatively when I was sexually assaulted. Like it matters.
[Image description: Femme in a strapless dress holding a yellow posterboard sign that says: ‘My dressing conservatively DIDN’T stop him!’]
