Every 15 Seconds a Woman Is Beaten... Tyler Shields Makes Postcards of the Lynchings

Throughout the ugly history of the U.S. there has been a long tradition of public lynchings of Black people.  The widespread terror that every Black man and boy confronted every day; he knew that at any time of night or day he could be lynched for any reason or no reason at all by a mob of white men.  It might not happen, but it always could happen and everyone knew that almost never was a white man punished.

But that is not all!  As Bob Avakian emphasizes in the opening of his historic talk, Revolution: Why Its Necessary, Why Its Possible, What Its All About, white people would gather and snap pictures of the mangled and mutilated bodies of Black people.  Out of these photos -- often with white people and children posing along side the carnage -- they would make postcards.  They would send postcards of the lynchings.  They would brag about having been there!

Bob Avakian, several years later, drew an incredibly apt analogy.  He said that today the images that surround us of women -- the pornography and violence, the degradation and humiliation, the ritualized submission and dehumanized objectification -- are similar today of such "Postcards of the Lynchings.

In these photos, taken by Tyler Sheilds, Heather Morris (of Glee) poses in 1950's style housewife attire, is bonded by an iron, swallows the excretions of the iron, and is made up to look bruised and battered.  


Okay -- what part of the 1950s symbolism is supposed to be endearing?  The fact that marital rape was still legal?  The open discrimination against women in education and the workplace?  The fact that women were dying of back-alley abortions and often couldn't even get birth control?

Oh -- I get it!  Its the fact that women were beaten and forced to do the ironing and no one even acted as if this was fucked up.

The truth is -- all this shit still goes on, but it takes slightly different forms today.  What hasn't changed is the violence. Every fifteen seconds a woman is beaten.  Every day 3 to 4 women are killed by their partners.  One out of every four women will be raped or sexually assaulted during her college years.

What has changed is that this pervasive has been dragged out into the light of day, fought against, but then declared to be over.  We are told we are in a "post-feminist" time -- we are sold the idea that the image of the battered woman that keeps reappearing in fashion and art as something fun or daring or cute or sexy.

We are even sold this idea by women who have earned a lot of respect for their tradition-challenging roles in a boundary-bending show like Glee.  This only adds to the sting and disorienting power of such "cute" images of domestic abuse.

Just as the "Postcards of the Lynchings" were a very deep part of white culture in the history of this country, so is this view of women such a pervasive part of American culture these days that it is not even recognized as horrific by many.  Just as there was -- and remains -- a need for revolution to liberate Black people, so too is the need for the kind of revolution that can liberate women more pressing than ever! 

Here is the clip from Bob Avakian on Postcards of the Hangings:

Doing a Presentation in Prison on "Male Domination"

Revolution online #243, August 21, 2011

Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund* received the following letter:

Greetings in solidarity! I've been receiving Revolution for a while now. I relish each new issue. Revolution newspaper is my weekly dose of revolutionary reality.

I am doing an AODA drug program here in the prison. Recently the subject of domestic violence, sex roles, and male dominance came up. After the group I was re-reading the June 12 issue of Revolution, when I came upon the center feature about 'Rape and A World of Violent Domination'. I knew I had to share it with the other prisoners in my AODA group.

I approached my AODA counselor with the idea of doing a presentation about "Male Domination and it's effect on women and society." I was surprised when he was fully supportive and told me I could come up with the presentation and run the group for one day.

My presentation went great. I taped the feature from Revolution up on the board and presented to my fellow prisoners many ideas that they had never considered before; namely that "women are not breeders, lesser beings, or objects created for the sexual pleasure of men, that when women are held down all of humanity is held back." I could see the shock on the other men's faces as I shared the statistics 'one in three women and girls is sexually abused or beaten in her lifetime' and all the others.

Men who only the day before had argued that male domination over women was "the natural order" suddenly began to see the horrors that these societal views force onto women and girls. The men I most suspected would dispute and argue against me began to ask questions like "what can I do to stop this violence against women?" and "How can I teach my young son to treat women as equals?"

I'm writing today to thank you from the bottom of my heart for Revolution newspaper. It gave me the opportunity to share Revolutionary thought and equality with others. It is a gift I was proud and touched to be able to share. I am happy I was able to share the truth of women's equality with these men. I truly believe it will change their lives and the lives of the women they encounter in the future in a profound manner.

In Solidarity,

'A Wisconsin Revolutionary Comrade'

 *The Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF) is an educational literature fund that fills requests from U.S. prisoners for revolutionary literature, especially Revolution newspaper.  DONATE to help make this possible.

The Thing About Slutwalks... And a World Without Rape

I'll admit, when I first heard about Slutwalks I cringed. I hate the word slut. It is too hateful. Too bound up with shaming women for their sexuality. Too linked to the deep trauma experienced by millions of women and young girls every single day throughout the world. Too much part of the cultural DNA that says, “She deserved it,” or, “She was asking for it,” or, “She's dirty,” or, “You little cunt whore.”

To get right down to it, for me the word “slut” was too indelibly linked to a girl named Kelly who transferred into my Junior High School in the middle of the year. She was ridiculed and outcast in that kind of mean-girls way that reduces a young woman to an invisible, despised, zero for absolutely no reason except to make others feel like maybe they exist. And really, what could be more lonely and humiliating for a junior high girl than standing in front of a whole cafeteria filled with uproarious laughter carrying your lunch tray from table to table being told that every empty chair is being saved for somebody, anybody, who isn't you?

But, Kelly had big breasts and so a table full of boys all called out to her and held open a chair. All it took was for her to sit down just that first time. After that, her fate was sealed.

To be honest, as the weeks rolled and on the rumors rolled with them, I have no idea which – if any – were true. I do know there were parties with lots of drinking where the girls still wouldn't speak to her and the boys would lure her into bedrooms. I also know that a young girl seeking acceptance and desiring some means to explore their own budding sexuality in this highly repressive society can get caught up in – and even, at times, take initiative in – all sorts of behavior that is degrading and demeaning to them in a very deep and lasting way.

But most of all what I know is that Kelly became someone who wasn't seen by any one in that entire school as an actual human being. No, Kelly was a “slut.”

And I know that wherever she is, even in the best case scenario, Kelly is still living with the trauma of not only by the abuse and (almost certain) sexual assault perpetrated against her by those boys, but also by the widespread dismissal of that crime, and the shaming and disrespect of her for being the victim of it, by a whole school full of her peers.

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Talking to the Abortion Rights Activists in Germantown, MD

Its been interesting talking to the people who have turned out to stand with Dr. Carhart. Women who work to end domestic violence – or at least to support women who have been abused and want to get out of those relationships. Women who do work against sexual violence and rape; they know deeply the trauma of having one's body and most intimate emotional and physical space violated. Young women who have found feminism on their college campuses. One of them told me she'd never really thought about where she stood on abortion until she got to college. Another that she used to be extremely Catholic and even was extremely active in protesting abortion (beyond the obligatory Sunday services of Catholic school trips occasionally to protest clinics). Another told me about how her older sister was raped and then needed an abortion.

Several times now the abortion-rights supporters I have spoken to have made the living connections between the violence and degradation women receive in their daily lives and the violence and degradation women receive for either being shamed and harassed for seeking abortion or prevented from accessing it at all. As well as the violence that has been meted out against the doctors and staff who serve women by providing abortions.

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