geez.

so..... the internet has been a strange and lively land today. specifically in terms of feminism. there are lots of questions about where feminism is going and if its started to crumble and whether or not its turned into a joke.

i think feminism is very necessary. it has never been, in my eyes, a "girls are better than boys" club and i think feminism as a whole needs to stand up in praise of men who stand with us- men who believe that women's perspective and contribution to the world is valid and meaningful and entirely necessary. men who love women is the true sense of the word: a feeling rooted in respect.

yesterday, i received an email from a friend which supplied a link to a breaking news story about a rapist who decided it would be a wonderful thing to carve the word "MINE" in to his victim.

now, just because that makes me want to puke doesn't mean i will look away. feminism, in all its varieties and modes, contains a set of ethics which states that things like this must not be dismissed or avoided. i choose to not look away from this because it is important to let the victim know "I see you. I am here to listen to you." it also supplies me with a deeper appreciation for the good men in my life.

the person who sent me the link is male and was absolutely disgusted and outraged by this. i am thankful for his emotions. i am grateful for his anger. it is an obvious sign that men and women can be on the same team when it comes to hatred and cruelty and that we can share a set of ethics that is as respectful of our differences as our commonalities.

a bit further...

i went for a jog and took advantage of the bright sunny day we've received. The Almighty Jog works wonders. it really does. it helps me think. it provides an environment to find clarity. probably all that hard breathing. :)

i think what i'm trying to get at in the post below is that intellectual investigation of violence and victimization become dangerous sometimes... dangerous in terms of inadvertently trivializing the suffering of others. i'm reminded of Susan Sontag's book "Regarding the Pain of Others" and how we have a moral responsibility when it comes to the proliferation or manufacture of images of other people's suffering- whether that representation is of a creative nature or documentary or expository. we may not use these images to speak for the victims and we must be on guard in using specific acts of victimization as metaphors that sensationalize, glamorize, minimize, or trivialize the event itself. to do so is to add a new layer to the victimization that has already occurred. we further the humiliation. and in someways, possibly inadvertently, encourage the outlook that the victim is somehow to blame. it disregards pathos as being a true, accurate state of being.

i am trying currently to merely hold a candle for others. i am not trying to speak on behalf of the victims. i cannot tell their stories for them. what i can do is raise them up so that they are seen... remembered... given a platform from which to scream or cry or whisper... or even forgive. whatever the story, it does inspire hope. whatever the horror, we can be gentle, we can be thoughtful, we can be truly progressive.

heart-broken rant...

upon waking, i immediately started thinking about the news... probably because the last thing i read last night on AOL was the death of natasha richardson. very, very horribly sad. what a loss for us all. i loved her work and i love her husband's work and it just made me so so sad for her children.

and so all morning i've been having a hard (unsuccessful) time getting certain horrors out of my head: the woman who had her lips, eyelids, and HANDS ripped off by her best friend's chimpanzee. oh my god. OH MY GOD! the horrific image i've got in my head of this poor woman is breaking my heart.

and then, there's the monster in austria who kept his daughter in a windowless rape dungeon for 27 years, impregnated her 7 times, let one child die, and raped her in front of her children- 3 of which never saw sunlight until they were rescued. i mean... WHAT! HOW! a mental disorder isn't a good enough explanation for that type of sustained torture and unimaginable cruelty. it just isn't. your ass is fucking evil. EVIL! and i can't stop thinking about the daughter... this isn't an experience a person will ever be able to bounce back from. ever. some lawyer involved with the case referred to her as a "broken woman". how the hell could she not be? she's a walking murder victim. there's nothing any of us can do to heal her from something like this. not one thing.

and maybe that's why my mind is so wrapped up in all this- the tremendous sense of helplessness i feel when i learn of someone who's been so totally humiliated, brutalized, tortured... i can't really even describe my reaction to this. i just feel so separate from the world. the world seems enormously, inexplicably gross. i have to make a huge effort to remind myself that good does, in fact, exist. i have to remind myself that, hopefully, and with enough diligence and stubborn perseverance, ART can combat these horrors... that this woman might, MIGHT, be able to find some small comfort in a poem or a piece of music or a painting... that she will hopefully pick up a paintbrush or a pen... what else is there to hope for?

speaking of anonymity...

photo courtesy of the Mercury News:
afghan women wear blue scarves on their heads in honor of international women's day

this photo both fills me with pride and breaks my heart. read the article here.