Take Patriarchy By Storm, Aug 4 - 14th, NYC

If you hate the way that women are not only raped but then blamed and shamed for being raped...

If your blood boils at the knowledge of millions of women bought and sold and abused and degraded in the global sex industry...

If you want to puke when you hear Christian fascists moralizing that women should “keep their legs closed” and you want to scream when you hear of another abortion clinic being attacked, another doctor being stalked, another law restricting women’s right to birth control or abortion being passed...

If you are infuriated by how pornography has become more violent, more degrading, more cruel, and more humiliating towards women even as it has become more and more mainstream...

If you are sick of the way women have been trained to hold their tongues, suppress their rage, and remain silent in the face of this all out war against their lives and their humanity...

You need to be part of the August 4 - 14^th intensive effort to TAKE PATRIARCHY BY STORM.

For ten days in New York volunteers from around the country and all over the city will work closely together to launch an all-out counteroffensive against patriarchy and to strategize together to figure out how we are going to go forward to win.

We will:

• hold flash protests outside of porn stores and anti-abortion institutions (like fake clinics and the Catholic church)
• stage positively confrontational “social interventions” (like going into crowds at outdoor concerts with big signs which read, “Stop Watching Porn! Start Fighting Patriarchy!”) and stand our ground in the mass debate this provokes
• get out in the oppressed neighborhoods throughout the city with a beautiful “War on Women” display
• do street theater in crowded areas
• hold public programs on women’s liberation
• organize a cultural talent show against patriarchy
• and discuss and strategize every day as to how to really kick out the jams and take the movement to End Porn & Patriarchy to a whole societal level, particularly making plans for the campuses and high schools in the fall

From our work thus far with this initiative we have found incredible receptivity. Yes, some people are hostile (which is only to be expected in a society where so many have been indoctrinated for so long in such bone-deep misogyny), but there are also many who have been choking on their rage and hungry for an outlet. And there are many who begin by dismissing or even attacking us who, through sharp arguments and political struggle, open up about how much turmoil they have been in over these very questions and express the desire to get involved in the movement to end patriarchy.

But until now we have not found the ways to fully tap into this, to bring it to the surface, to sustain this and to fan it even further. This is what we will do in these ten days. This will be a forging ground for all who attend, a chance to work together with other like minded people to try new things out and figure out what works, to get into deep discussion about all this and strategize about going forward, to project this movement to thousands of people in one of the most trend-setting cities in the world, and to draw in and actively organized hundreds as we do.

stoppatriarchy@gmail.com

BAsics Bus Tour hits NYC -- AND I'm protesting 50 Shades of Grey tonight!

I am absolutely thrilled that the BAsics Bus Tour is kicking off officially today here in NYC.  This time there are two full 30 foot RV's and two dozen volunteers from around the country.  They are impressive and they are taking out the most liberating and inspiring and practical solution to the problems of the world: all the way communist revolution as re-envisioned by Bob Avakian.  Even more specifically, they are promoting BAsics from Bob Avakian and other work of his.  I know from the last leg of the Tour, which went down South, as well as from my broader experience in and knowledge of the movement for revolution that this opens up tremendous enthusiasm, hopes, profound questions and contributions from many kinds of people.  Stay in touch with the blog: basicsbustour.tumblr.com to stay up to the minute on how this Tour is going.

Also, tonight I will be hitting the streets with a small crew of folks from the movement to End Pornography & Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women to protest an event that is celebrating 50 Shades of Grey.  It is called, "50 Shades of Seduction" sponsored by Sidebar in Manhattan.  They are offering drink specials (50% of Grey-tinis) and a class on S&M.  We will be outside passing out fliers and holding signs which read:

50 Shades of Grey: Bad for Women, Bad for Sex!

As we put it in our announcement for this protest:

We'll be calling on people to reject the view of women and of sex that is promoted in the book, not to imitate and celebrate those views.

50 Shades of Grey glamorizes the story of a powerful man hurting a woman who cares for him using riding whips, chains, paddles and violently degrading sex. This is not 'just fantasy.' This does harm.

Every day millions of women around the world are hurt through the real-world acts of rape, battery, sexual slavery, pornography and sexual abuse.   Women should be fighting to end their oppression and degradation, not celebrating it or seeking to get 'in on' their own objectification, commodification and degradation.

50 Shades of Grey is also bad for sex.  More space needs to be opened up for people to imagine and experience the full richness of sex between mutually respectful and equal partners. Instead, this book pushes people to get over their discomfort and wallow in degradation and enslavement.

Think about China coming from a feudal society less than 25 years before...you had these big changes in the relations between men and women

Revolutionary Communism and the Liberation of Women -- WE NEED TOTAL REVOLUTION!    

#10

Editor's note: Here Bob Avakian recalls his visit to socialist China in 1971, before the death of Mao Tsetung and the restoration of capitalism in that country.

There were all these really exciting and uplifting things. We felt the whole spirit of "serve the people" that was popularized throughout the society, and we saw living examples of revolutionary transformations. We'd come upon situations where the men and women would be engaging in friendly competition to do things like sweeping up in the house. Again, you think about China coming from a feudal society less than twenty-five years before that, and here you had these big changes in the relations between men and women. Even though this was a small example, in a sense—and even though, of course, many backward ideas and practices still persisted and were still contending with these more advanced things—this friendly competition captured both the "serve the people" spirit and the pervasiveness of the changes that were going on between men and women. ...

Bob Avakian 

Chairman of the

Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

BAsics 2:18

The fury of women can and must be fully unleashed as a mighty force for proletarian revolution

Revolutionary Communism and the Liberation of Women -- WE NEED TOTAL REVOLUTION!    

#9

You cannot break all the chains, except one. You cannot say you want to be free of exploitation and oppression, except you want to keep the oppression of women by men. You can't say you want to liberate humanity yet keep one half of the people enslaved to the other half. The oppression of women is completely bound up with the division of society into masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited, and the ending of all such conditions is impossible without the complete liberation of women. All this is why women have a tremendous role to play not only in making revolution but in making sure there is all-the-way revolution. The fury of women can and must be fully unleashed as a mighty force for proletarian revolution.

Bob Avakian 

Chairman of the

Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

BAsics 3:22

Liquid Plumr Porn Spoof: Making Female Degradation "Cute" and Normalized

Check out this new ad for “Liquid Plumr Double Impact.” As you will quickly recognize it is a spoof on a cliché in porn: the plumber shows up and really the housewife wants nothing more than to be sexually ravaged by him and all his muscular, musky masculinity. Further, this ad includes “double penetration,” (get it, “double impact”?). That is, the woman gets penetrated by two men at once (and indeed, two plumbers show up at her door promising to “snake your drain” and to “flush your pipe.”) During all this, the narrator (in the cliché porn voice) brags about how this “double impact” includes “a long snake to grab deep clogs... and a powerful gel to finish off the rest, baby.”

What is wrong with this ad?

It is further normalizing, and making “cute,” the notion that “everyone is into porn.” In fact, a lot of people are deeply offended by porn – and more people ought to be. It is very damaging to the way that all of society is trained to view the female half of the human race – as well as how people are coarsened and trained to view sex as conquest and domination. But this ad further alienates and silences those who might raise a critique of porn; already many are afraid to do so because they will be called “uptight” or lacking in a sense of humor.

It is portraying this “fantasy” of being “double penetrated” as being the secret fantasy of women. In reality, this is a “fantasy” that was almost wholly created by the porn industry itself. Further, this “fantasy” has nothing to do with actual human intimacy or mutual respect or closeness and pleasure (and I guarantee this is NOT the “fantasy” that is occurring to most women when they are stuck with a backed up sewage system!) – instead, this “fantasy” is all about sexualizing the impersonal ganging up on and overpowering by multiple men of a woman who is reduced to a thing.

All this reinforces the notion – which is the dominant message in pornography as a whole as well as the broader cultural portrayal of women in general – that all women at all times exist to be (and long to be) sexually available to all men. When a woman calls a plumber, she doesn't really need help with her plumbing, she is really harboring a secret fantasy to be sexually ravaged. When a woman walks down the street, she is not really just trying to go from “place a” to “place b,” nor is she enjoying the sun or the atmosphere of the city, she is really seeking to be hit on and objectified by men. All this feeds the notion that any woman who rejects the sexual advances of men is really denying him something he is entitled to, thereby justifying his rage or violence in the service of reclaiming what is “rightfully his.”

Finally, a word to all those who are thinking, “Lighten up, its just a spoof.” Don't be stupid. I don't accept that you can possibly be that dense. The only reason this ad “works” is because it is very closely playing off the typical forms of porn that are very well known and has very broad meaning and impact in the world. I am not “stretching” to link this ad up up with the meaning – and the broad impact – of the very industry (porn) which it is closely mimicking and playing off of.

And let there be no unclarity here: that industry, pornography, is becoming more and more violent, more and more degrading, even as it is becoming more and more mainstream. The normalization of “double penetration” (and even “triple penetration” and more) as well as the mainstreaming of this into the broader public culture (which is exactly what this ad does) is very much a part of this. In the real world, this is having devastating and long-lasting impact on the lives of real women (as well as men). It has created and contributes to reinforcing and bolstering the fact that women cannot go through the world without being constantly reminded that they are viewed – by a very large percentage of men as well as other women and their own views of themselves – as nothing more than a physical object, valued and valuable only so long as it is sexually attractive to and available to men. That is a fucked up and enslaving culture. Rather the opposite of a funny, hah-hah, joke.

Protest & March for International Women's Day -- March 10th NOON

End Pornography and Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women!   Abortion On Demand and Without Apology!   Fight for the Emancipation of Women All Over the World!

Saturday, March 10th Celebrate International Women's Day 12:00 Noon  Protest and March against sites of women's oppression!   Gather near St. Patrick's Cathedral (near Rockefeller Center, exact location TBA):   ►The Catholic Church's approach to women, gender, science and sexuality - like that of many religions - is a Dark Ages disaster! The Pope has condemned condoms (causing millions of HIV/AIDs deaths). The Church condemns homosexuality and insists that "divorce is a sin" (contributing to women staying in abusive marriages). Recently, Catholic Bishops urged "non-compliance" with new regulations requiring health insurance to cover birth control! MARCH to TIMES SQUARE: ►Protest the objectification of women! Women's near-naked and rail-thin bodies are displayed, often in subservient poses, and used to sell everything from clothes  to cars to "American culture" to the entire world. ►Protest the U.S. Military Recruiting Center!  The U.S. Military concentrates violence against women!  This includes its quasi-official reliance on brothels as a "perk" to male soldiers; the role of military forces in trafficking women and girls; and the epidemic of rape, harassment and violence against female soldiers.    MARCH to and PROTEST STRIP CLUBS (TBA) in the area! ►U.S. men spend an estimated $15 billion annually on strip clubs, as compared to $4 billion on baseball. Strip clubs have always objectified and degraded women. But with women entering - and fighting for increasing respect in - the public sphere, strip clubs have become the new "all male preserve" and an enclave for male chauvinism and entitlement towards women's bodies. Further, strip clubs prey upon the desperation, abuse and addiction of many women, including women who've been kidnapped and trafficked. ALONG THE WAY: Protest "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" & Celebrate Abortion Provider Appreciation Day: ►Crisis Pregnancy Centers are fake "clinics" that knowingly prey on women for whom being pregnant is a crisis. However, they are driven by an anti-abortion agenda. They often have no clinical staff, spread lies, guilt-trip women, and enormously delay and complicate women's ability to access abortion.  ►In contrast, we'll celebrate abortion providers because March 10th is Abortion Provider Appreciation Day!

PLANNING/MOBILIZING MEETINGS - THURSDAYS @ 7 PM   If anything in this call resonated with you... If you care about the conditions of women... If you want to do something that can really make a huge difference - not only for yourself, but for women (and all people) worldwide and for future generations... CONTACT US! stoppatriarchy@gmail.com

3 things you can do right away: 1. Invite us into your class, club or dorm. 2. Spread this on FB and Twitter. 3. Spread this announcement for IWD everywhere

Call to END PORNOGRAPHY AND PATRIARCHY:

THE ENSLAVEMENT AND DEGRADATION OF WOMEN!

We are told that "equality for women has been won" and that "there are no limits to what girls can achieve." BULLSHIT!

Every 15 seconds a woman is beaten. Every day three to four women are killed by their partners. One out of four female college students will be raped or sexually assaulted while in college.

In recent years, pornography has become increasingly violent, cruel, degrading towards women; women are referred to as "cumdumpsters" and "fuckbuckets"; the "money shot" (ejaculation in a woman's face) is standard; humiliating cruelty-like violent "ass-to-mouth" penetration-is normalized, and racist bigotry is sexualized. Meanwhile, the broader culture has been pornified: pole dancing is taught at gyms, "sexting" is a national phenomenon among teens, and the strip club is the accepted backdrop to "male bonding." All this is tied in with, and reinforces, the trafficking of millions of women and girls as literal chattel in the international sex industry.

This is NOT society becoming more comfortable with sex. This is society becoming saturated with the sexualized degradation of women. If you can't imagine sex without porn, you're fucked.

At the same time, a Christian fundamentalist-driven assault is imperiling abortion, birth control, real sex education and women's lives. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people who do not conform to traditional patriarchal gender and sexual norms are demonized and threatened. Abortion doctors are killed. Women who seek abortions-or even birth control-are stigmatized. 2011 saw the largest spate of legal restrictions on abortion since Roe v. Wade in 1973.

ALL THIS MUST BE STOPPED!

Fetuses are not babies. Women are not incubators. Abortion is not murder.

Women are not objects. Women are not things to be used for the sexual pleasure of men NOR are they breeders of children. WOMEN ARE HUMAN BEINGS CAPABLE OF FULL EQUALITY IN EVERY REALM!

 

It is long past time that this new generation stand up, reject, and RESIST this culture of rape and pornography; this culture that labels women "selfish" if they choose not to become mothers; this culture that reduces women and girls to sexualized objects while denying their full multi-dimensional humanity (including their right-as one essential part of this-to explore their sexuality without shame or stigma); this culture that demonizes and bullies LGBT people. 

Our purpose is NOT to lobby for new legislation to ban pornography ("decency laws" have always served to further repress homosexuality, boundary-challenging art, and scientific sex education). We oppose the criminalization of women in the sex industry. Our mission is to challenge the new generation in particular to reject this culture of rape and pornography, to resist the shaming of women who have sex and/or abortions, to wage fierce cultural and political resistance to wake others up, and to bring forward a liberating culture that celebrates the full equality and liberation of women.

 contact: stoppatriarchy@gmail.com

Another excerpt of Dr. Susan Wicklund and I Speaking about Why Abortion is NOT a "Wedge Issue"

What Has Happened Since Abortion Dr. George Tiller's Murder?

In honor of the upcoming Roe v. Wade anniversary (the Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion) I am posting more clips from the program held two years ago with Dr. Susan Wicklund and myself on Abortion, Morality and the Liberation of Women.  This begins with Dr. Susan Wicklund describing the heightened threats and harassment against abortion providers and ends with quite a bit from me about the need for a different approach.

It is crazy this hasn't even been viewed 400 times yet!  Please help me change that -- spread this!

Finally, a shout out to Heather Ault for editing this entire program into an incredible DVD.  You can get the full DVD here: http://www.freewebstore.org/WorldCantWait/Abortion,_Morality_and_the_Emancipation_of_Women/p237374_549278.aspx

"Human Barbie," Sexualization of Girls, and a Call for PROTEST

Just now someone sent this link to me with the subject line, “this is just obscene.” I had to stop and write something because, indeed, it IS obscene – on many levels!

'Human Barbie' Gives 7-Year-Old Daughter Liposuction Voucher

The worst part of this story is not even the fact the mother of this 7 year old would give her a voucher for a future “boob job” and liposuction, it is the fact that this young girl is already herself begging for these procedures.

Obviously, it is outrageous for a parent – or any adult – to give such a gift to a child, but lets not leave this story at criticizing her mother. Even as indicated in the “objective” coverage of this story, the idea that a female should be evaluated primarily in terms of her physical attractiveness (as defined by a dangerously narrow and unhealthy standard) to men is broadly accepted in society. That is not being indicted by the article. What is being called out is that this 7 year old is just too young to be objectified and surgically modified. I agree, she is too young. But just because a girl grows up into a woman doesn't make objectifying and commodifying her body okay (nor does it make it harmless for her to “choose” to objectify and commodify herself!). And this is what is not being called out in this article, or in most of the discussion these days about the very real and very dangerous phenomenon of sexualizing very young girls.

If we treat women like nothing more than sex objects then how is that NOT going to filter down into the psyches and aspirations of very young girls?

To be clear, sexualizing a 7 year old IS a fucking crime, but lets just step back a second so we don't miss the other crimes this is part of.

Read more »

Should a Woman Feel Sad About Her Abortion? Fuck No!

There is absolutely nothing wrong, tragic, unfortunate, or sad about a woman choosing to get an abortion. Nothing.

Why?

Because being forced to have a child against your will is enslavement. Period.

Why else?

Because fetuses are NOT babies. Fetuses have the potential to become babies, but until they are born they have no independent social or biological existence. They are a subordinate part of a woman's body. Any state, religious, or family intervention which forces – or even pressures – a woman into subordinating her life, dreams and health to incubating that fetus against her will is completely unjust and illegitimate. It is immoral and it is enslaving.

But what about her responsibility? If she didn't want a baby, shouldn't she have thought of that before she “opened her legs”?

This argument is wrong on at least four levels. First, this suggests that it is wrong for women to have sex and that they must be punished for doing so (while applying a totally different standard to men). Second, this approach treats children – who should be wanted and well cared for – like nothing more than a punishment to women. Third, this ignores the fact that getting an abortion when one is not ready or eager to have a child is taking responsibility. Finally, this ignores the fact that it is the very Christian fascists who are criminalizing abortion who are responsible for denying increasing numbers of women access to birth control and sex education (which makes it enormously harder for them to protect themselves from pregnancy during sex in the first place).

But what about when a woman is raped? Or if she really wanted to have a baby but there is something wrong with the fetus or a danger to her own life? Doesn't that make the abortion sad?

Again, fuck no!

If a woman is impregnated because of being raped, it is the rape that is the horrific crime – the abortion which prevents her from being forced to bear the child of her rapist is positive and liberating.

If a woman really wants a child but something goes wrong with the pregnancy, it is the medical problems that are the tragedy – the abortion that eliminates those dangers is positive and liberating.

*************************

Women are human beings, not incubators. A woman who cannot decide for herself when and whether she will have a child has no more freedom than a slave. Abortion is not something to apologize for, it is something to celebrate and defend. 1 in 3 women will have an abortion in her life, she is not wrong for doing so. It is time to declare loudly and boldly:

ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY!!!

Sunsara Taylor Speaks at Protest Against Backpage.com for Facilitating Sex Trafficking

Yesterday I joined the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and others to protest Backpage.com for making millions of dollars off of paid advertisements which facilitate the trafficking and the prostituting of women.



The overwhelming majority of women and girls in prostitution are tricked, coerced, or forced through male predation, outright violence, and/or desperation. The notion that women's bodies should be available for sale to men for sexual use and sexual degradation and plunder is a product of thousands of years of patriarchy as it is filtered today through capitalism, which commodifies everything -- including the flesh, the sexuality and the lives of women and girls.

The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, which is led by Bob Avakian, is building a movement for revolution. This revolution takes the complete liberation of women as a driving force, and a dividing line. Find out more at: revcom.us

Keep up with the new effort to
End Pornography & Patriarchy: the Enslavement and Degradation of Women
here: stoppatiarchy.tumblr.com

"Sex-Positive" Feminism and Sasha Grey; No Defense for Porn

Re-posted [originally published 9/27/11]

Recently, two college students (young women) insisted to me that it was wrong to oppose pornography because we should be "sex-positive." They also insisted that many women choose to go into pornography out of their own ambitions and that ought to be respected as a means of "empowerment."

This is bullshit on so many levels. First, the vast majority of women and girls in pornography and prostitution (and the lines do blur) would get out of it if they could. Second, even where women choose for themselves to be in porn despite the availability of other options, this does not mean that choice is a good one. For them, or even more significantly for society and women as a whole. The view of women that is concentrated and perpetuated in porn hurts all women way beyond those who "choose" to take part in it. Every woman at every hour of every day -- whether on the street, in her home, at her job, in school, or on a battlefield -- is affected by, diminished by, and endangered by living in a world where millions upon millions of men get off of watching women reduced to objects to be tortured, humiliated and brutalized for their sexual arousal.

These young college students then mentioned Sasha Grey as their perfect example of a woman who entered into porn on "her terms" and to "her own benefit and empowerment."

I described, among other things, some of what Sasha describes about herself in the video below -- how she invited a man to punch her in the stomach during oral sex as one of the ways that she won such favor in the porn industry, for instance. The young women hesitated for a moment, but then one of them insisted that if this was her choice we should respect it. "But, what of the content? What of the view of women and sex that is being promoted through this?" I asked them. At this point, they insisted they were out of time and had to go (interesting, as they had stopped on the street and talked at great length and with no seeming hurry for quite some time).

The fact is, most women do not like the acts they are forced to take part in as part of the porn industry. Many women comply with those acts out of fear, out of financial desperation, out of addiction, and other forms of extreme coercion. Often, women don't even consent to what is done to them in film but have no resources or rights to keep the film from being distributed anyway.

But for that fraction of women in the industry like Sasha Grey who choose to be demeaned, degraded, abused, and much more (including films that portray them as small girls, ass-to-mouth scenes, gang-bangs with up to fifteen guys on her at once, scenes where she licks a toilet bowl and worse), the critical question is NOT whether she chose to do those things or not. The key question is the social effect of those actions -- and of broadcasting those actions to millions of viewers.

When someone kills someone else, we don't ask the question, "Did they really feel it in their hearts? Was their choice 'authentic to them?'" We ask first, "What was the social effect?" And, if there is not a very good reason for them to have killed (ie: some situations of self-defense or in certain situations within the context of a just war) their behavior is condemned for its effect on society. Further, such behavior -- wherever possible -- is stopped.

This is an analogy. Killing someone is not the same as choosing to be in a porn film. But, the method involved must be the same. The effect of porn must be evaluated based on its societal effect -- not based on the individual intentions of the people who made it. Judged from its societal impact, porn is extremely harmful to women -- to the women involved in making it as well as to every woman walking the earth where there is an international demand for it. It trains men (and women themselves) to not regard women as human beings worthy of respect and equality, it sexualizes degradation and domination, it strips sex of the full range of human interaction, intimacy, vulnerability and caring it can potentially enable human beings to share, it concentrates some of the most unreconstructed racist bigotry and hatred, and it spreads this courseness of being able to view other people as "things" into other dimensions of this heartless world (it is no coincidence that soldiers fighting in unjust wars often get "pumped up" watching porn before going out killing).

Having walked through all that, take a look at this clip from Tyra Banks when she had Sasha Gray on as a guest. Someone has put some extremely important information throughout the clip which I hope you will also take the time to consider.

W e d n e s d a y ,   N o v.   2   7 : 0 0 p m R e v o l u t i o n   B o o k s p r e s e n t s   S U N S A R A   T A Y L O R O N  "The Woman-Hating Reality of Pornography and Why You Should Want No Part of It" This evening is the first in a series of talks by SUNSARA TAYLOR on Ending Pornography and Patriarchy; the Enslavement and Degradation of Women   Coming up:  Wednesday, November 16, 7:00pm "No More Defensiveness, Conciliation, or Reliance on the Democrats: Abortion On Demand and Without Apology!" *Wednesday, November 30, 7:00pm  "Why and How the Future Revolutionary Society Will End Pornography, Prostitution, and Patriarchy" This series of talks by Sunsara Taylor will be followed by Q&A, discussion, debate, and mobilization.  Sunsara is currently working with others to launch a new effort to:  End Pornography and Patriarchy; the Enslavement and Degradation of Women, which can be learned about at:  http://stoppatriarchy.tumblr.com/call   Sunsara Taylor writes for Revolution newspaper, is on the Advisory Board of World Can't Wait, and is a co-host on "Equal Time for Freethought" on WBAI radio in NYC. Donation suggested: $5-10 Revolution Books / Libros Revolución 146 W. 26th Street (btwn 6th & 7th Aves) www.revolutionbooksnyc.org  212-691-3345   Keep Revolution Books on the scene now when it's needed more than ever.  Contribute. Become a Friend of Revolution Books.

Forward email

Marlene Winell, Margaret Downey, Staise Gonzales, and myself at the Texas Freethought Convention/Atheist Alliance of America

Hidden Camera Expose on "Crisis Pregnancy Centers"

Check out this damning exposure of the bullshit told to women at the many, many crisis pregnancy centers throughout the country (many of them peddling straight up medial lies and funded by the government).

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

On the occasion of today's Slutwalk in NYC -- I am reposting this piece I did on Slutwalks. Its also available at: http://rwor.org/a/244/thing-about-slutwalks-en.html



by Sunsara Taylor

Posted Thursday, August 25, 2011

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. 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 even more specific, for me the word "slut" was too indelibly linked to a girl named Kelly. She 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 called out to her and pulled up a chair. All it took was for her to sit down just that first time.

To be honest, as the weeks rolled on and 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 herself in a very deep and lasting way.

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

Read more »

Pornography and the Military -- from a talk I gave at NYU

The following is a question and answer from a talk I gave at NYU a couple years ago titled, "From the Burkha to the Thong; Everything Must, and Can, Change -- WE NEED TOTAL REVOLUTION!"

Remember George Tiller

I recently did some writing on how abortion has become stigmatized and how we reverse this trend.  I will let you know when this is published (it will be in about a week).  In the course of it I had to review a lot of the history of how the right to abortion was won -- and then how the momentum in society has been reversed over the course of decades so that we ended up in a situation where almost an entire generation has grown up without ever hearing anyone speak positively about abortion.  It is also a situation where the doctors who risk everything to provide abortions are isolated, terrorized, stigmatized and targeted.

I am reposting this youtube clip I recorded down in Wichita outside of what once was Dr. George Tiller's clinic exactly one week after Dr. Tiller was assassinated while serving as an usher in his church on a Sunday morning.



Never forgive and never forget the murder of this hero -- or the other heroic doctors and staff who have given their lives and sustained severe injuries for women's right to abortion.  Take a look -- and heed the basic message I conveyed then, over two years ago.  Since then, the situation has only gotten worse; there's been the most legal restrictions on abortion this year ever.  Dr. Leroy Carhart, Dr. Tiller's colleague and close friend, has been targeted by the same forces who were largely responsible for Dr. Tiller's assassination.

Stay tuned for news of my upcoming essay on abortion stigma... and further posts about how to take action to reverse this!

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:

The Whistleblower -- and Ongoing U.S. Involvement in Sex Trafficking

First off, if you haven't seen the Whistleblower -- starring Rachel Weisz, Vanessa Redgrave, David Strathairn, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Anna Anissimova, Roxana Condurache, and Monica Bellucci -- go out and see it.

Its an incredibly raw look at sex slavery -- the literal trade in women's bodies and flesh as commodities, as sources of enormous global profits, and as "things" for men worldwide to sexually plunder.  The fact that there is a demand for such a "commodity" is itself an indictment of the culture of patriarchy and the sexualized degradation of women that is so rampant in -- and so widely promoted by -- pornography.

But, what makes this movie even more gripping and important is the way it reveals a true story of U.S. and UN government collusion with -- and participation in -- this sex trade and its protection.

In case anyone thinks this is just an "isolated incident," check this out from an article by Rebecca Murray posted yesterday at http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=104911

"In one harrowing experience, Rania and two other girls visited a house in Baghdad’s Al-Jihad district, where girls as young as 16 were held to cater exclusively to the U.S. military. The brothel’s owner told Rania that an Iraqi interpreter employed by the Americans served as the go-between, transporting girls to and from the U.S. airport base."

This conforms to stories that were shared with me informally by several of the anti-war Iraq and Afghanistan war vets I have spoken and traveled with and gotten to know over the years.


Not only has the U.S. military been one of the main impetuses in creating the demand for sex trafficking over decades, not only has the U.S. military been involved in many levels of protecting this "industry" (as well as, at times, itself having a much more active hand in it!), but the wars that the U.S. wages are a huge part of what creates the conditions for women and girls to be vulnerable to be sold into this industry.  As the IPS article continues:

"Before the Gulf War in 1991, Iraq enjoyed the highest female literacy rate across the Middle East, and more Iraqi women were employed in skilled professions, like medicine and education, than in any other country in the region.

"Twenty years later Iraqi women experience a very different reality. Sharia law increasing dominates everyday life, with issues like marriage, divorce and honour crimes implemented outside of the court system, and adherence to state law."


All this is totally fucked.  And through it all, the people who run this country have the audacity to pose not only as the "leader of the free world" but also as the "liberators of women."


If nothing else was wrong with this system (and there is plenty more that is wrong), this alone would be reason enough for revolution.  Yesterday is not soon enough.