A Call to Action: Facebook and Gender-Based Hate Speech

As I will be leaving college and entering the dreaded work force I have been contemplating what I choose to share via social networking sites.  I often find myself on Facebook and will find college friends posting drunken pictures.  First I think, wow it looks like they had a fun night.  Second thought, maybe that picture shouldn’t have been shared.  As a person who I think spends too much time on the Internet and in general, Facebook, I find myself thinking about the politics of disclosure.  As social networking is replacing face-to-face conversations I’m beginning to think we are reinventing social interactions and all use social networks for different reasons.  Some want to create Facebook pages for their pets, use Facebook to find a partner, share every day drama, post pictures of their babies, and/or keep in touch with friends and family members.  Why do we share what we share?  Countless times, I have found myself typing a status and end up deleting it because I don’t know what a family member would think.  With hashtags appearing on Facebook and memes are popping up everywhere via the inter-web we are weaving in and out of images, quotes, humor, sarcasm, admiration, news, social activism, and even hate speech.  Scrolling though the Facebook feed is easily done with a click of a button, but what makes us stop in our tracks? 

I’ve chosen to follow feminist media who are on Facebook and that is where I get some of my daily news.  I couldn’t help but stop in my tracks when I was scrolling down my feed and saw a photo that was not removed, but it was blatant hate-speech (Referring to the picture seen here).  If something offensive is posted on Facebook it can be reported, but it may not necessarily be deleted due to their terms and conditions.  On May 21^st Women, Action & the Media (WAM), the Everyday Sexism Project and author/activist Soraya Chemaly launched a campaign, call to action on Facebook to take effective action to stop gender based hate speech on the website.  The campaign has over 100 women’s movement and social justice organizations.  Over 60,000 tweets and 5,000 emails have been sent.        

Facebook has responded to the open letter with, “a important commitment to refine its approach to hate speech.”  In a statement, “Facebook addressed our concerns and committed to evaluating and updating its polices, guidelines and practices relating to speech, improving training for its content moderators and increasing accountability for creators of misogynist content.”  It sounds like kudos may be given to Facebook for adjusting their policies.  Yet, it has taken this long for Facebook to refine hate-speech?  They are adjusting policies because WAM, and the Everyday Sexism Project would shame them until it changed.  As social networking websites are changing our social interactions and impact our lives, hate-speech and acceptance of violence against women should not be apart of our exchange of interactions.  As the campaign continues, many companies and organizations have pulled ads from Facebook to show they do not agree or condone hate speech, abuse, and violence against girls and women.  Some companies like Dove, American Express, and Zipcar have not pulled their ads that are displayed alongside hateful, violent, and abusive content.  If you would like to support this campaign, tell the companies what you think via Facebook or Twitter.  Use the hashtag #FBrape on Twitter.         

By Gretchen D. Hawker

Here is the Open Letter to Facebook:

http://www.womenactionmedia.org/facebookaction/open-letter-to-facebook/

Here is a list of companies that pulled ads: http://www.womenactionmedia.org/facebookaction/campaign-wins-updates/

Break the Silence, Stop the Violence

I would like to take a moment to pause.  Take a moment to breathe.  As we have entered the month of May, I have been reflecting on the previous month, April.  April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month.  The WRC and PWCL sponsored Take Back the Night/Bike Back the Night.  It was our final event for the month.  At the event, we shared a safe space in Parkway North in Smith Memorial Student Union.  We came together in solidarity to march and speak out against sexual violence and military sexual trauma.  As we chanted and marched down the streets of downtown Portland having our voice heard, our pictures taken, and people joining us, this overwhelming feeling of solidarity came over me, with a strong after thought—why and how long would we need to hold events like these?      

Take Back the Night is an annual march and event, as a way to take a stand against sexual violence and speak out against such crimes.  The first TBTN event occurred in 1975 in Philadelphia.  Community members came together after Susan Alexander Speeth, a young microbiologist was murdered by a stranger only a block away from her home.  She was walking home alone.  38 years later, people of all walks of life are still focusing their attention, effort, and lives to eliminate sexual violence.  

Sometimes we take one step forward and two steps back.  Unfortunately, quite a few sexual assault cases have made national news showing empathy for the perpetrators.  This is rape culture.  Take the Steubenville verdict; the perpetrators never apologized for raping a girl but only for getting caught.  Rape culture is victim-blaming, slut shaming, and condoning the idea that sexual assault is a “women’s issue.”            

Another large step forward, The Violence Against Women Act that recently passed again, now includes Native Americans, and LGBT survivors.  VAWA also keeps judges from being able to rule in rape cases that the victim was allegedly “asking for it.”  Rape culture seeps into news broadcastings, TV sitcoms, politics, college campuses, workspaces, etc. Needing a law to prevent legal victim blaming is rape culture.  We need to keep a steady progression against rape culture, against sexual assault, against rape.  Is it a choice of picking battles or is it a matter of always interrupting oppression? 

By: Gretchen D. Hawker

What is Rape Culture?

Sexual Assault Awareness month is nearly approaching.  I find myself asking what exactly is rape culture?  How did this enter into people’s vernacular?   What does it mean to be living in a rape culture? 

A crucial aspect of the definition of rape is the absence of consent.  Culture has many meanings.  I’ll define it as a full range of learned behaviors and patterns.  The degradation of women becomes the norm through acceptance of misogyny.  In a rape culture images, conversations, and laws validate and perpetrate rape.  Validating rape culture in the media excuses rape and reinforces myths about rape and/or sexualizing rape.  Shaming and silencing survivors of rape allows the perpetrator to ignore the actions and the survivor is left with guilt and shaming.    

Viewing mass media daily through images and advertising becomes naturalized going unquestioned.  This leads to people asking, “Violence against women is still an issue?”  In a rape culture majority of people think this is the way it is and no one can change it or people ignore that it occurs daily at an astonishing rate.  Re-examining advertisements, music, television, laws, macho-masculinity, speech and language are steps that need to be taken. Being surrounded with these images, ideologies, and laws can seem overwhelming and shaming.  Re-examining, creating self-awareness, and naming the problems need to happen to end rape culture.  Instead of teaching girls to not get raped, there has been a shift on telling men to not rape.  What made him think this was acceptable and okay to commit rape?  This is removing the blame on women.

By Gretchen D. Hawker

I came across this article “Ten Things to End Rape Culture.” I suggest you take a look at it: http://www.thenation.com/article/172643/ten-things-end-rape-culture#

Red

Red

Alone, I close the door behind me

And let the image scatter

Let go of the smile, and the frown

Let the mask relax

It has no purpose here

Beyond words and expressions

Only me

Peel back the layers one by one

And let them fall to the floor

Back before this body

Before humanity

Before good and evil

Through naked primal forces

To when there was only blood.

The hot water falls red with it

It is the reddest thing I’ve ever seen

The original, universal, stark against white

Screaming its vitality as it flows toward the drain

I don’t know if it is unclean or powerful

No difference

If it is birth or death

The blood pushed out with a healthy newborn

Blood pumping from a man’s chest as his eyes stilled

I’ve seen both, and it looked the same

Inseparable

In this time, for this moment of every day

Such distinctions do not exist

Unity running red down my legs

The pain I have suffered, the pain I have caused

The gifts I’ve been given

And the gifts I have to give

All are embodied here

My life

Not draining out of me

But effusing from me

Too filled with passion to be contained

I let the heat engulf me, drum out the tension

Flow over me until the water runs clear

And step out feeling

Renewed

-Lucille Tower

Reflections on Lauren Faust's defense of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

I'll admit something here that may sound a little silly. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic reminded me of something very important to Feminism: Female capability can take many forms. It's extremely harmful to the progression of womankind to degrade another female for not being "The right kind" of woman. This was especially important to me because I was wont to look down on other women for being too "cutesy", writing them off as shallow and pedantic.

Which is why I was agog when I heard that Ms. Blog (the online component of Ms. Magazine) ran post claiming MLP was "homophobic, racist and smart-shaming": (My Little Homophobic, Racist, Smart-Shaming Pony) for which the creator of the show, Lauren Faust, wrote a rebuttal (My Little Non-homophobic, Non-racist, Non-smart-shaming Pony: a rebuttal)
(If you only have time to read one, read the second one- Faust makes a lot of great observations about modern feminism and what she calls the "Token girl syndrome" in TV where a female must be everything everyone wants in a women and ultimately makes for a terribly boring character.)

The greater theme overshadowing this exchange is the Feminist Movement and it's identity crisis.  Richter seems to think all the ponies ought to look angry to show they're formidable- But really, should they look angry? Does not appearing defensive mean that they'll be easily bowed over and rendered incapable?

In the past, it may have been necessary to that all Feminists appear on edge- ready to defend their cause - because there was a good chance that their very right to be anything other than a subservient vessel for pleasure or pleasantries would be challenged at any moment. But is that defensiveness necessary now? Maybe. But not toward everyone. Being hostile probably won't win any sympathizers to the movement.

I remember an exchange I had with my estranged mother when she told me that her childhood Mormon mantra for womanhood was "be sweet", and was shocked when I was not particularly offended. Sure, it's not ideal, but sweetness doesn't necessarily bar you from capability. It isn't anymore progressive to say women must be aggressive than it is to say they must be docile. We ought to stop building new boxes for femininity and learn to accept women and girls for who they are.Varied human beings.

-By Elle Kelsheimer

P.S. Another related article: http://jezebel.com/5984756/blonde-self+tanning-essex-teen-girl-has-higher-iq-than-einstein-and-it-sucks-that-everybodys-so-surprised