Author Archives: ruxi

penalizari criminale pentru avort respinse in toata lumea

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“Criminal Penalties for Abortion Rejected Across the Globe” (Alternet)wpo_abortion_jun08_graph1.jpg

Cand traiesti intr-o tara in care dreptul la avort ramine o problema dezbatuta la fiecare alegere si activistii contra dreptului-de-a-alege se simt destul de incurajati incat sa demonstreze impotriva pastilei contraceptive, avem multe motive sa fim pesimisti in privinta viitorului libertatii reproductive. Dar la nivel international, sunt si cateva stiri bune: peste tot in lume, cetatenii sustin personal dreptul la avort, chiar atunci cand propriile lor guverne criminalizeaza avortul.

Programul privind Atitudini asupra Politicilor Internationale (The Program on International Policy Attitudes) a efectuat un sondaj cu barbati si femei in 18 tari care impreuna alcatuiesc 59% din populatia planetei. In 17 din aceste 18 tari, majoritatea participantilor la sondaj au raspuns ca resping penalizarile criminale pentru avort. In 9 din 18 tari, majoritatea a raspuns ca avortul este o decizie individuala in care guvernul nu ar trebui sa intervina. Din cele 9 tari unde se crede ca guvernul ar trebui sa aiba un cuvant de spus despre dreptul la avort, numai intr-una – Indonesia – majoritatea sustine sanctiuni criminale pentru femei care intrerup o sarcina.

Sunt valorile “pro-choice” imbratisate peste tot? Nu. Dar e greu sa negi efectele politicilor “anti-choice” asupra sanatatii publice si vietii de familie peste tot in lume. Mai este clar ca statutul legal al avortului nu este corelat cu rata avorturilor in nici o tara anume – mai exact, interzicerea avortului nu inseamna ca avortul se practica mai putin. De fapt, unele din tarile cu cele mai ridicate rate de avort din lume sunt locuri in care procedura este cu desavarsire interzisa prin lege. Pe de alta parte, tarile cu cea mai scazuta rata de avort au cateva lucruri in comun: Avortul si metodele contraceptive sigure, legale si accesibile (si deseori gratuite, acoperite de un sistem national de ingrijire medicala), plus educatie sexuala comprehensiva si un mediu socio-cultural in care sexul este vazut ca o placere si o responsabilitate, nu un act rusinos. Alte lucruri care sunt corelate: Faptul ca lipsa de acces la contraceptie creste rata de avort si faptul ca avortul ilegal inseamna de cele mai multe ori avorturi nesigure, ceea ce duce la cresterea semnificativa a ratelor de boli si morti materne.
— de la feministe

(linkuri in engleza)

Concerns over trafficking at Euro 2008

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The Women’s Rights Committe at the European Parliament is tackling football and sex trafficking in two days of debate in Brussels. There is concern that Euro 2008 hosted by Austria and Switzerland is tempting traffickers to force more women into prostitution. The parliament committee will ask the European Commission what it is doing to prevent this. An EU plan adopted in 2005 includes details of specific actions to be regularly reviewed and updated.

Two years ago, before World Cup in Germany, the committee launched the Red Card campaign against forced prostitution – claimed as a success. Slovakian Christian Democrat Anna Zaborska says: “This initiative came at the urging of German NGOs, warning us what’s being prepared, and that transport is being organised to bring in young women especially for this event.” The host cities are eager to make Euro 2008 a happy experience for fans. But Austrian Socialist MEP Christa Prets, noting that organised crime was ready, willing and able to spoil the good clean fun, said: “Trafficking in women is a Europe-wide crime and an extraordinarily cruel form of modern slavery.” The International Labour Organisation says more than two million people are trafficked worldwide every year, and four out of ten of them are believed to be forced into sex.

Source: euronews

also: “Europe Reconsiders Prostitution as Sex Trafficking Booms”

on feminism, violence, patriarchal culture, religion (& more)

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REFLECTIONS ON ‘ARTEMIS’ – A ROMANIAN FEMINIST PROJECT (PDF)
by Maria Diaconescu

… Even so, with these East-West differences, violence and sexual abuse against children and women is a reality in Eastern European countries, as it is in the Western countries. The East and the West share the same patriarchal ground that makes possible the cultural and structural violence that we live in. Violence of any kind means taking advantage of the power difference. The societal/ cultural or structural violence refers to all actions, attitudes and values of a society which block or delay the development of the other who has no “voice” in society, or who is not heard (children, women, people from a different ethnic or religious background, etc.). This kind of values and attitudes are responsible for inequalities of chances, and violence against women, children, Roma people, etc.

What do I want to highlight in this paper? There is a high support of patriarchal culture via the educational environment, the political environment, and the church. In the name of the so-called national and traditional values, strongly supported by the church, there is a high support of patriarchal culture. In my opinion, patriarchal values have to do a lot with the skin of religion – the temporal and social norms, known in Romania as “the national and traditional Christian values.” The patriarchal values have nothing to do with the core of spiritual and religious meanings. The spiritual, transcendent, essential part of any religion of the world has to do with the essence of the human being which transcends any skin: gender, culture and religion differences; this is the core part of any religion. According to Peseschkian, the religious externals that are influenced by time, the rituals and dogmas – the skin – are put in the foreground, while the actual religious contents – the core – are put aside. This produces a shift in form and content, misunderstanding and confusion because of the lack of differentiation between faith – religion – church.

My hypothesis is that the religious skin ideology – put in the foreground – patterns in a paradoxical way any other subsequent ideology/ politics or philosophy of life, even if (and especially when) people reject or ignore the core religion. This is what happens after any revolution. Subsequently, the revolution patterns the relationships in the same way: another form of patriarchal, changed roles. …

the SAGE project / great statement re: legalizing prostitution

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fwd sarah l., londonfeministnetwork list

Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE)

“The mission of the SAGE Project is to improve the lives of individuals victimized by, or at risk for sexual exploitation, violence and prostitution through trauma recovery services, substance abuse treatment, vocational training, housing assistance and legal advocacy.”

SAGE was founded by Norma Hotaling, a woman who had experienced homelessness, addiction and prostitution, and in their own words: “Many of the STAR Center staff are survivors of sexual exploitation and/or are recovering addicts. Some of us also have incarceration experiences.”

Q: Does SAGE support legalizing prostitution?
Continue reading →

must reads

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“Who determines our ‘most important ideas’?” (on marketing, propaganda, anti-racism, and conversations about social justice) @ Theriomorph

… Marketing is selling ideas/products (you sell the product by selling the idea). It is advertising; manipulation and fundamental brainwashing to achieve an end. The insertion into the minds of the masses the ‘spin’ on reality we want them to take to benefit our wallets, our status, our social power, or our issue.

As more and more social-justice-oriented and political activists of whatever-labeled progressive stripes begin to embrace the tools of marketing to fight back against the increasing destructive power of extreme conservatism and fundamentalism and Nationalism in this country, I’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not this tactic can be made to work well for the ‘Left.’

Propaganda in and of itself is a value-neutral word.

The history of propaganda in usage, however, is anything but value neutral, as any number of examples from global history show (I will use this example not for shock value or direct conflation, but because the propaganda of this era shows the clearest quick-reference link I know of between the marketing of ideas, socio-behavioral modification, the rewards for collaboration, and the punishments for resistance, which is also how marketing works).

I continue to feel profound unease about this adoption of marketing/propaganda strategies even as – perhaps especially as – more and more people who identify as politically progressive are doing it. …

On the pure-mind level, it’s not complicated at all. Propaganda = defocusing manipulation to achieve and retain power. Marketing = lying. Lying and abusing power becomes a self-perpetuating habit.

On the actual-life and solutions level, it gets complicated fast.

I want to see progressive people concerned with social justice in positions of power to effect change.

I want to see feminists publishing feminist books that a lot of people read.

I want to see members of targeted and oppressed groups achieving professional and personal success, and using their newfound social power to become institutional ‘gatekeepers’ – active allies to those who have not yet had the boot taken off their throat. …

[But] The big payoff comes in more for more, not more for few. …

Maybe that’s what we should be marketing, if we really think marketing can work: if we really are so dumbed-down all we can navigate are propaganda slogans, let’s do ‘More For More.’ …

…we live in a deeply damaged world which has shown very little capacity for handling complexity. In some very basic ways, just getting out the incredible notion that women are human is the major triumph.

But which women? The ones with the most privilege already?

If the 3% of feminism the people get continues to perpetuate disunity and active destruction of the alliances essential to real change, if ‘palatable’ means the same people saying the same things in the same way they have always been said, pocketing the pay, and leaving the majority to die, I want no part of it, and I do not call it social justice.

“One simple thing” @ A View from A Broad

… You won’t be popular as a feminist. You can’t prettify its message, make it palatable to those who use and abuse women, or convince people who don’t want to be bothered. Feminism is action instead of reaction, movement instead of cultural inertia, and thought instead of rote acceptance. Merely by demanding action it is threatening. Cultures by their nature, once established, tend to roll along until stopped. Feminism is the mechanism that stops a culture in its tracks and changes its direction.

Don’t expect to be liked for it. And don’t expect to educate people who claim to be looking for information. While feminism is a lot of things, they’re all very simple. Start at the bottom of the pyramid and look at the centuries of oppression and excuses and see how those inform today’s thought on women. Go to the next level. It all builds on itself. You can’t demand to jump ahead when you haven’t mastered the source material. Even so, the concept remains simple and threatening: Women have been denied their humanity too long. Women have been the scapegoats of society forever. If this threatens someone or confuses them, ask yourself why. But don’t expect it to be easy or popular.

“feeling like a macho man” @ la chola

Bloggers are in a position of relative privilege. … We have the time and the money to slow down and create a type of media justice movement that not only will last, but will center the needs of those who are the most marginalized in our communities. We have our history that teaches us we were at our strongest and our best when we were working in the community as a part of the community–that things went all to fucked up hell shit and back when we left OUR job as community builders in the hands of political advocates and interest groups. That things went to hell because political advocates and interest groups are not a part of our community no matter who they are or where they come from. They have a job that is dependent on finding ways to best market human beings to a mass consumer base.

We have all this knowledge, and yet over and over again we insist that the only way to go is up–even when we’ve been shown by people who know and have way more experience than us that from the bottom and to the left is a better road to follow.

… Whether it’s from spite or ignorance or hatefulness or fear, our communities are always looking in the wrong direction when it comes to women of color. And in turning our heads towards the power, we turn our hearts away from the woman in the corner–we leave her so alone the only thing she has left is her taunt, her macho man taunt.

Why is it so easy for us to look the other way? …

also see the rest of the texts Femostroppo Awards for 2007 @ Hoyden About Town

fwd: Family in Lithuania discriminated – urge for action

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from New Generation of Women’s Initiatives, Lithuania

Families are under attack in Lithuania, and we need your help!
May 20, 2008, Vilnius

The Lithuanian Parliament is currently weighing an unprecedented bill that would legally redefine the concept of family and that would establish a government-sanctioned concept of family limited exclusively to the traditional notion of a married man and woman and their children. With the stroke of a pen, this new concept of the Lithuanian family would relegate other family forms-single mothers and fathers raising children, unmarried partners raising children, and grandparents caring for their
grandchildren- to second-class status.

Demographic analysis demonstrates that the structure of the Lithuanian family is changing. In 2005, almost a third of all children were born to unmarried parents living as partners. The same year, the number of divorces per 100 marriages hit 56. This is evidence of the growing number of single parents, who in 98 percent of cases are women. Until recently, high unemployment in Lithuania also encouraged migration, and half of all workers who emigrated in 2005 were married men or women. As a result a new family structure-the long-distance family-emerged. A poll conducted in 2006 showed that all these different family forms are considered as families by a majority of Lithuanians. However, the new concept of family would have practical implications, as it could ostensibly be used to prevent nontraditional families from receiving the same level of government assistance and from benefiting from government programs meant to support and strengthen the family.

This bill, the first of its kind in Europe, has been applauded as a breakthrough by the Catholic Church and conservative politicians. While today this situation is confined to Lithuania, it could only be a matter of time before other European countries become receptive to such simple-minded and seemingly harmless, yet erroneous and discriminatory, attempts to destroy families under the guise of strengthening them.

The situation is critical, and domestic groups are increasingly being sidelined from the discussion. Therefore, we ask you today to urgently communicate with Lithuanian government and Parliament officials to express your concern about the State Family Political Concept bill currently under debate in the Parliament and to remind the government of its commitment-made domestically and internationally- to protect women, children and families in all forms.

Attached we suggest some language for your letter. Please feel free to incorporate any of these paragraphs or your own thoughts in your message and send letters to: Continue reading →

ziua barbatului care se dispretuieste, se pare

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de citit: “leapsa: ziua femeii, ziua barbatului” de jo @ the essential bystander [link transmis de cristina]

din arhive:

– un post de anul trecut in care propuneam ca daca tot ne intereseaza sa cream zile-de-militare-pentru-dreptul-barbatului-de-a-nu-lasa-capacul-de-la-wc-si-alte-trasaturi-masculine-definitorii de ce nu facem si o “zi a barbatului de origine europeana” sau “o zi a dictaturii comuniste” si tot felul de alte “zile” hilare prin care sa sarbatorim regresul si backlash-ul impotriva miscarilor anti-opresiune?! e ce zice si jo si e bineinteles un punct foarte simplu. (dar ma indoiesc ca cei vizati de leapsa vor pricepe ceva.)

– si inca un post in care eu chiar celebrez o “zi a barbatului” si ma solidarizez cu barbati care au nevoie de sustinere pentru ca pricep si rezista presiunilor patriarhale (si reclamelor la bere s.a.m.d.).

despre solutii care agraveaza problema – si solutii reale

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intr-un caz recent de violenta domestica din canada, o tanara agresata de partenerul ei a fost retinuta de politie in momentul in care a refuzat sa depuna marturie impotriva agresorului. despre caz – si felul in care in numele “protectiei” victimelor sistemul abuzeaza, in loc sa ajute, persoanele cele mai vulnerabile – la: “stop abuse with abuse” @ woc phd.

este doar un exemplu de esec al legilor contra violentei domestice si implementarii lor, atata timp cat se acorda prea putina atentie factorilor multipli ce intervin in vietile femeilor ne-majoritare. mai multe informatii (si resurse) in acest post mai vechi despre istoria si criticile aduse miscarii contra violentei de gen (en).

o alta ilustratie a aceleiasi probleme e data de alexandra oprea (in textul ei despre necesitatea integrarii experientelor femeilor rome in orice activism “feminist”, ca si in orice activism antirasist):

In Romania exista numeroase bariere in orice proces ce implica violenta domestica; spre exemplu: victimei ii revine sarcina de a inainta o plangere preliminara inainte ca agresorul sa fie arestat, un certificat medical eliberat in conditiile legii este necesar pentru a inregistra o plangere, nu exista reprezentare legala gratuita, de multe ori politia impiedica aducerea in instanta a cazurilor si este o mare criza de adaposturi in toata tara. In 2002, in Romania erau in total sapte adaposturi pentru victime ale violentei domestice.
Aceste bariere afecteaza femeile rome in mod disproportionat din cauza pozitiei lor la intersectia intre rasism, saracie si sexism. Cerinta de a obtine un certificat medico-legal inseamna o mare greutate pentru femeile rome carora deseori le sunt refuzate tratamentele medicale in spitale din cauza rasismului. Problema inregistrarii unei plangeri fara a avea acces la reprezentare legala gratuita inseamna o alta bariera pentru femei rome sarace, multe dintre care, pe langa faptul ca nu au o stabilitate financiara, nu detin nici capitalul social necesar pentru a naviga sistemul legal. Pe langa faptul ca sunt atat de putine adaposturi in Romania in general, numarul de adaposturi care sa fie accesibile femeilor rome este probabil zero, din cauza atitudinilor rasiste prevalente in societatea romaneasca. In plus, apelarea la politie inseamna o bariera cat se poate de serioasa, data fiind brutalitatea epidemica a politiei impotriva comunitatilor rome. Cand femeile rome suna la politie, de multe ori politia refuza sa vina in zone populate de romi – mai ales in ghetto-uri…

… O abordare de jos in sus a acestei probleme ne-ar obliga sa luam in considerare femeile rome sarace, care de multe ori se tem sa dea telefon la politie din cauza brutalitatii acesteia fata de comunitati rome, carora de multe ori le este refuzat tratamentul medical la spitale si care nu au acces la tribunal si la sistemul legal, sau slujbe care sa le permita sa paraseasca situatii abuzive. Folosirea acestor experiente ca fundatie pentru cercetarea pe violenta domestica din Romania ar avea ca rezultat un discurs mai aproape de realitate.

din pacate, chiar informatiile-stas oferite ca ajutor de organizatii altfel pozitive ca artemis (si chiar si aceasta brosura in care noi am preluat acele informatii) se fac vinovate de trecerea cu vederea a diverselor circumstante in care se pot afla persoanele agresate. subiectul este de maxima importanta si actualitate: pe langa faptul ca aplicarea legii 217/2003 privind combaterea violentei domestice lasa in continuare foarte mult de dorit, anul acesta asteptam imbunatatiri si sa fie introdus ordinul de restrictie [ca fapt divers, Moldova tocmai a promulgat si ea o lege anti-violenta] si in acelasi timp “deputatii cer masuri europene pentru stoparea discriminarii romilor”. insa asa cum arata alexandra, numai o abordare de jos in sus si luand in considerare factori ca genul, etnia, statutul economic etc. impreuna ne poate fi de vreun folos daca vrem sa rezolvam ceva si sa existe ajutoare reale pentru toti cei care se gasesc in situatii vulnerabile!

(un articol recent, de asemenea util aici: “Rom European – Discriminare la medic?”)