Violence Against Women

Posts Tagged ‘violence against women’

Rihanna interview

6:11 pm By la Macha · Celebrities| TV| Violence| Women · 9 Comments

5 Nov 2009

This just broke my heart. Broke my heart.

From Huffington Post, a preview on the Rihanna interview:

“When I realized that my selfish decision for love could result in some young girl getting killed, I could not be easy with that part. I could not be held responsible for telling them, ‘Go back.’”

I think that it is really generous and loving of Rihanna to think about girls at a time in her life when she is hurting and confused and devastated and even humiliated. But that section quoted above–that part where she says, “her selfish decision to love”….Oh, how my heart breaks.

It is not Rihanna’s job to stop violence against women. It’s not any woman or girl’s job to stop violence against women and girls. Even if she stayed with Chris Brown forever–it would never be her fault that women are being killed by men. It is manipulative and even violent to say it is. It is not selfish for a woman or girl to love. Dear god, no.

It is selfish to beat a woman. It is selfish to scare and intimidate her. It is selfish to take her love and use it against her, it is selfish to beat a woman who loves you because you know you can.

It is Chris Brown’s job to stop violating women. It is men’s job to stop violating women. It is men’s job to stop twisting and FUCKING with love so freely and generously given. It is the job of men to grow the fuck up and get into some kind of healing/therapy so that they can teach *little boys* how to not beat the holy fuck out of a person who loves them.

And it’s media’s job to stop putting the lives of little girls onto the shoulders of survivors. They have enough shit to worry about. It’s time to start putting responsibility where it belongs. On the fists of men who make the choice to use them whenever they feel like it.

Amnesty International Video About Femicides in Juarez

2:38 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Justice| Violence| Women| mexico · No Comments

18 Oct 2009

Women raped, murdered and disappeared in Juarez continues to be an ongoing situation. With over 400 cases reported and an unknown number not reported, the issue fades in and out of the public eye.

I would like to know of ways to support local organizations and local families in and around Juarez. Organizations without big budgets so that the mujeres of Juarez can live and rest in peace.

Latin@ stars support child rapist

1 Oct 2009

roman Roman Polanski is a child rapist, right? He gave drugs and alcohol to a 13-year-old girl, and then molested and raped her vaginally and anally (trigger warning, transcript of court hearings at link).

And yet, even as he raped a little girl, Polanski can’t seem to get enough support from stars everywhere–including a whole slew of the top rung of Hollywood Latin@s. A petition of support of Polanski has been making the rounds the past few days:

On September 16th, 2009, Mr. Charles Rivkin, the US Ambassador to France, received French artists and intellectuals at the embassy. He presented to them the new Minister Counselor for Public Affairs at the embassy, Ms Judith Baroody. In perfect French she lauded the Franco-American friendship and recommended the development of cultural relations between our two countries.

If only in the name of this friendship between our two countries, we demand the immediate release of Roman Polanski.

And everyday, more Latin@s are signing on, including:

Pedro Almodovar (Spanish),
Penelope Cruz (Spanish),
Guillermo del Toro,
Gael Garcia Bernal,
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Richard Pena (who is the director of the NY film festival, which VL has promoted)
Harold Alvarado Tenorio

Now, technically, the point *could* be made that the petition is calling for international film festivals to be “neutral” sites that exist outside of legal jurisdictions:

Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision. It seems inadmissible to them that an international cultural event, paying homage to one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers, is used by the police to apprehend him.

By their extraterritorial nature, film festivals the world over have always permitted works to be shown and for filmmakers to present them freely and safely, even when certain States opposed this.

The arrest of Roman Polanski in a neutral country, where he assumed he could travel without hindrance, undermines this tradition: it opens the way for actions of which no-one can know the effects.

But there are two things that keep me from buying that:

This section:

His arrest follows an American arrest warrant dating from 1978 against the filmmaker, in a case of morals.

and this:

Filmmakers, actors, producers and technicians – everyone involved in international filmmaking – want him to know that he has their support and friendship.

Is drugging and raping a 13-year-old child really a case of morals? Does it show the best morals in the world to support and give friendship to a man who drugs and rapes a child? To advocate for that man’s freedom? Is a rapist’s freedom really more important than recognizing the crime of rape? Is friendship with a rapist really more important than standing in solidarity with women and girls (and men and boys) worldwide that are raped, have been raped and/or will be raped?

Do these “stars” have no responsibility at all to the young girls that watch their films?

On a different note, the girl that Polanski raped was also a worker–she was raped by him while on a shoot. Her career was finished the moment she told what happened–why is it more wrong to be arrested for a crime you admitted to committing while at a work party, than it is to be raped by your boss while at work? Why does Polanski have more right to a career than that girl did? Why do the careers of women seem predicated on their ability to keep their mouths shut about the violence and power male colleagues and bosses exert over them?

Do no workers owe their solidarity to a fellow worker who was assaulted and then blacklisted?

What is most disappointing about the list of Latin@ stars is that Gael Garcia Bernal is on it. Coming from a background of radical activism, and having appeared in several movies with leftist politics, I expected more of him.

But when has a belief in radical politics ever made men more inclined to stand against gender based violence?

Violence against women and girls, and sexual violence against children is endemic throughout the world. It is not progressive, radical or liberatory to stand in support of a rapist–it is the norm. It is saying it is ok for child rape to be a normal part of the world.

Latina women and children deserve more, and expect more.
The survivor of Roman Polanski’s assault deserves more.
These “stars” should be ashamed of themselves.

Voices Against Violence Zine

9:07 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Justice| Media| Women| media justice · Comments Off

19 Sep 2009

Call out for Submissions

Voices Against Violence Zine is accepting submissions for our next issue. Please send in your essays, poetry, letters, personal accounts, artwork & photography to be included.

What is the Voices Against Violence Zine? A small zine-diy style, with work from people of color, indigenous folks, trans people & queer survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence and sexual assault. Included topics can be: healing from trauma, transformative words used as a healing mechanism, enabling healing, life after trauma, self-help guides/resources, self-healing, dancing as means to healing, healing through narration, forgiveness (do we need it?), & collective trauma.

Voices Against Violence zine is to be used as a community teaching tool, as a jump off for discussion and creative outlet and for conversations that need to happen.

Voices Against Violence is part of Café Revolución.

Send submissions in English, Spanish, tex-mex, spanglish or any combination* via email, either in text in the body of the email or attached in .txt format to noemi.mtz (at) gmail dot com.

In the subject enter voices against violence submission. Include a brief bio, your mailing address, website if any. Mention your zine or any upcoming projects you’d like. If you prefer to remain anonymous, let me know or include a pen name. Email any photos, artwork as an attachment.

deadline: Oct. 31st *translations would be cool but not necessary.

forward and repost! thx

Via / Hermana Resist

How nationalism overrides and hides violence against women

7:57 pm By la Macha · Immigration| Violence| crime| society · 2 Comments

11 Aug 2009

I started reading this article about a Mexican man who attempted to set his wife on fire with a sense of horror in my guts. Not because I can’t believe any man would send set his wife on fire, but because Jesus CHRIST, how many times is this shit going to happen?

I was so pleased to read that the woman managed to escape that horrible fate (the man couldn’t find a way to set her on fire after he poured gasoline on her, so he left the house)–but then I got to this part of the article:

The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was contacted. Police Chief James Horvath said he has been told by ICE that they only will become involved if the alien is being charged with a crime. He did not receive a response from ICE on Monday.

“We are finding more Mexicans living in the area,” Horvath said.

The arrest comes five years after North Strabane Township police arrested five Mexican nationals for assaulting a countryman. Three of those arrested also worked for Tatano Wire. The five did not face trial but were released to ICE.

Um…what? First off, what does “finding more Mexicans living in the area” have to do with spousal abuse? This could’ve been an article about how another woman was set on fire by a man claiming to care about her–but for the grace of god it’s not. But just because it’s not, that doesn’t mean that the spousal abuse then becomes not news worthy.

Secondly–since when do “non-biased” reporters use completely biased words like “countrymen?” That sentence very clearly assumes that all readers are “fellow countrymen” (aka good ol’ americans with good ol’ american birth certificates like you and me). Is that a valid assumption for reporters to have?

And if it is, why do I, a queer macha, have to be a countryman? Why can’t I be a cuntryboi?

All joking aside, this is what happens when people (more than likely men, although the author of that article was a woman), decide that “citizenship” and “questions of citizenship” are more important than understanding and dealing with violence against women. The women who are violated are completely erased from the story or become little more than the vessels that carry the more important story of “how are we going to catch us some alienz?”

article found via twitter

Young and in school while living on the border

10:33 am By la Macha · Immigration| youth · 1 Comment

20 May 2009

arthazelcnn What is it like to be young and in school while trying to negotiate violence at home and border crossings? This article posted by CNN gives really good insight:

When she gets to the school each morning, Diaz changes out of her jogging pants and into her uniform skirt.

“Because of the people over there, I don’t feel comfortable with the men and stuff, so I wear pants,” she explains. “You definitely see a difference here. The streets, they are more clean here than they are in Juarez, and I think the people respect you a little more. You don’t have to worry about people giving you trouble.”

El Paso, population 734,000, has long enjoyed the benefits of strong community ties with its industrial sister city of approximately 1.5 million. But the violence and insecurity created by the war between the Mexican government and the drug cartels has strained that relationship.

For students at Lydia Patterson, who live in Juarez and cross the bridge each weekday, the small, United Methodist preparatory school has become a safe haven in the months since drug-related violence in Juarez has intensified.

“My school is a home for me because I have teachers and they treat me like parents,” says Hazel Barrera, 18. “Here, they take care of us and they make us feel comfortable and safe.”

For Hazel Barrera at least, the violence of her homeland means sexualized violence–sexualized violence that she can name and has active strategies in preventing. But what effect could a single kid possibly have on militarized state endorsed violence–violence that is being committed in the name of protecting its citizens from violence? Violence that the U.S. has a hand in creating but refuses to have a hand in ending?

It makes me think of the following response by a New American Media representative to a post Mamita did about how immigrant women are represented.

In addition, I hope you didn’t miss the 73% of women polled who responded saying they had become more assertive since entering the United States, or the 33% of women who reported themselves as heads of household (up from 18% in their home countries). Or the 71% of women who report that they share financial decisions with their husbands, or the 78% who report that they participate actively in family planning decisions. Finally, I was struck by the 43% of women who agreed with the statement “Many of my responsibilities in the U.S. are handled by men in my home country.” All of these facts serve to complicate the idealized, stereotyped mother-martyr you seek to destabilize–a goal we share with you.

I was uncomfortable reading this section of Ms. Goode’s response to Mamita because while it may really serve to nuance how immigrant women are understood in the U.S. (they are NOT submissive docile creatures waiting to be beat up by their man), it recreates harmful stereotypes about the U.S. being the ultimate liberator to non-U.S. women. A discourse that has been used to justify violence against the homelands of other women of color throughout the world (think: hyper violent Arab man and how his relationship to the submissive Arab woman was used to help justify the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan).

The horrific violence and sexism in non-U.S. countries most certainly does exist. The experience of Hazel Barrera proves that. I am not denying that Mexico (or any other country) is more violent, more sexist, more whatever than the U.S. What I am questioning is how the hell could they *not* be when those countries exist as chronically unstable due to economic wars (and actual physical wars) being waged against them by the U.S. and other first world nations?

Maybe it’s not that the U.S. is less sexist or gives women more freedoms, but that the U.S. is more stable, and thus has more resources for women to fight sexism and violence within their communities?

And if this is true, what is the proper response to “immigration and women” by those of us in the U.S.? What would be most helpful to young women like Hazel Berrera?

Craigslist suspect arrested

10:49 am By la Macha · Internet| Violence| Women| sex · 1 Comment

21 Apr 2009

We told you yesterday about the murderer who seemed to be targeting women through Craigslist. The latest breaking news is that a suspect has been arrested:

The fiance of the suspect has come to his defense, but I can’t help but think she sounds like an incredibly naive person:

Philip Markoff, arrested Monday after an intensive police investigation, “could not hurt a fly,” his future wife Megan McAllister wrote in an e-mail to ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“Philip is an intelligent man who is just trying to live his life so if you could leave us alone we would greatly appreciate it,” she wrote Tuesday.

“We expect to marry in August and share a wonderful, meaningful life together.”

Famous last words, no?

I hope for her sake that this is all a big mistake–but this is not the first time a clean cut “intelligent” man turns out to be a violent anti-woman jackass.

Joe Arpaio’s Guards Break Woman’s Arm (Allegedly), ICE Releases Her on Own Recognizance

12:14 pm By la Macha · Immigration · Comments Off

13 Mar 2009

Story was left in comments by Coz

Maria del Carmen Garcia Martinez, after being released from ICE custody.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a suspected illegal immigrant Thursday night after it was determined that her arm had been broken while she was in MCSO custody.

Maria del Carmen Garcia Martinez was released on her own recognizance, her left arm slung in a cast after she received treatment at St. Joseph’s. She had been turned over to ICE earlier in the day by the MCSO. ICE took her to St. Joseph’s for medical attention, photographed her injuries and released her with a pending court date around 8 p.m. from its offices on Central Ave.

Martinez, being greeted by her family outside ICE’s Central Avenue HQ.

Martinez, 47, was met by her family, Respect/Respeto activist Lydia Guzman and a couple of reporters, including yours truly. Her left arm was swollen as was her leg and ankle. As her daughter Sandra translated, she explained that she was recently arrested by the Phoenix Police Department, after she was questioned about posting signs for a yard sale.

She said she was arrested for a having a fraudulent I.D., even though her I.D. was an out-of-date I.D. card from California, according to her. Martinez was then collared and booked into MCSO custody.

(Oddly, the Phoenix PD’s on-call spokesperson, an Officer Holmes, said he could find no record of Martinez in their system.)

While in custody at Lower Buckeye Jail, Martinez said she was brutalized by six MCSO detention officers, who were trying to get her to put her fingerprints on a voluntrary removal order, a document wherein an undocumented foreign national gives his or her consent to be repatriated.

(Lydia Guzman asserted that sometimes MCSO will attempt to get a fingerprint instead of a signature for the VR form. An ICE spokesman had no immediate explanation for this procedure.)

Martinez refused, as was her right, but the officers tried to force her, she said. They stepped on her, twisted her arm, and beat her. She noticed that one of the officers was Hispanic.

“Why are you doing this to me, when you came from Mexico also,” she told the Hispanic guard.

She was placed in a cell by herself, and later that night she was visited by eight MCSO officers, who warned her to sign the VR, or, “We’re all going to get you,” she said they told her.

Martinez’s right hand was swollen, and stained with blue ink.

A fellow inmate advised Martinez’s daughter that her mother had been beat down. She feared for her mother’s life, and advised her lawyers, who filed an emergency stay on Martinez’s behalf.

According to her daughter Sandra, Martinez was a housemom, who stayed home and took care of the family. Martinez’s husband works as a handyman. They came here three years ago from California, looking for a less expensive way of life.

“I’m proud of her, and I’m glad that she’s out,” said Sandra, her eyes welling with tears. “I couldn’t sleep. I would think of her, and cry every night because I missed her so much.”

Ironically, because the MCSO has apparently abused her, Martinez may get to stay in this country permanently, noted Guzman, who has been following the case since Martinez was arrested.

Via Arizona Pheonix

Oprah discusses Chris Brown and Rihanna

8:38 pm By la Macha · Women · 1 Comment

9 Mar 2009

When I saw this, I was vaguely irritated by the screaming white woman–why is it that white women always feel that they know the most about black women and abuse? There are two black women and two men of color on that panel…is it necessary for a white woman to be screaming over the black women speaking truth?

I also appreciated Oprah’s words–she’s clearly speaking from one survivor to another–and I felt that the way she spoke was not condescending or irritating. She’s been there and she clearly knows what needs to be said.

But at the same time, I must ask–where are the prominent men of color and/or black men speaking out to Chris Brown? And I’m not talking some community activist man of color that works mostly within the black community, I’m talking big talkers that interact regularly with white audiences (ala Oprah) like Bill Cosby or Jesse Jackson. These men have so much to say about how poor black women conduct themselves (having multiple babies with multiple partners, having children out of wedlock, etc)–but in a clear case like this where a man has clearly violated and abused a woman on the deepest level–they are silent. Tyler Perry just sat there like a bump on a log and then says the reason Brown should be concerned is because “he could’ve killed her.” Um….would this have been ok if it were “just” a slap in the face? (also notice how Perry said *if* this happened? Dude. It happened. Everybody from Rihanna to Chris Brown to onlookers all say that he did it.)

It shouldn’t have been Oprah saying what she said, it should’ve been Tyler Perry. And Jesse Jackson, and Bill Cosby and Al Sharpton. I would even argue that President Obama should be speaking very clearly about this. All of them should be hosting conversations about domestic violence on their shows. All of them should be talking about male sexuality, masculinity, maleness, and how that all interacts with violence.

It’s time for domestic violence to stop being a “woman’s” issue and start being a community issue. That can only happen once men join the conversation, however.

Man kills former girlfriend and her new partner

11:45 am By la Macha · GLBT| Women · 2 Comments

27 Feb 2009

This was just devastating to read about.

A man angry over what cops called a bisexual love triangle gunned down his ex-girlfriend and then shot her new lover on a Brooklyn street Wednesday.

Jeanette Martinez, 23, was getting ready to move out of the Boulevard Houses when her ex ran up and shot her twice in the head as she stood on the sidewalk near her car, friends and police sources said.

Martinez had filed an assault complaint against the gunman, who was not identified, just hours before the 1 p.m. incident, sources said.

“It was an execution, pure and simple. The woman didn’t stand a chance,” a police source said.

The gunman then chased Martinez’s girlfriend of seven months, Keila Ocasio, 19, across five lanes of traffic on Linden Blvd. into an oncoming SUV.

Here is the news clip of neighbor’s reactions to the murder:

This whole thing just makes my skin burn with anger and sorrow. Two young women, both Latinas, are dead because they were lovers and they were women and some man didn’t like either of those things. When will our communities feel that homophobia and woman hatred are important enough to discuss?

Thanks to Angry Brown Butch for pointing me to this story.

Older Entries

Link Cariño | Hissip: [...] Who’s your mama? [...] [...]

la Macha: I agree totally with you bubbles. [...]

Bubbles: Re: "Many women have mental, emotional instabilities which cause them to end up in abusive relations [...]

la Macha: and whaaaa? women who have mental health issues are suddenly to blame for getting beaten? [...]

la Macha: gabriel--i don't agree with you that women have a submissive nature--but that's ok, I guess. I agree [...]

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