It’s been far too long since we had one of these. What’s made your brain explode in anger, pain, disbelief lately?
I’ve certainly found the plight of the Jena 6 horrifying, and I’ve been one of those progressive bloggers who’s been MIA in commenting on it. I fell for those excuses Pam highlights: “It’s not my area of expertise” and “It’s not my issue”. Admittedly as an Australian who does blog about our particular national race issues I have a better excuse than the American A-list blogs who ignored this case while talking about how the Republicans don’t care about black people, but I probably should have mentioned it anyway, because the denialism about how effective simple nonverbal threats are in constraining freedom of choice and action is out in full force, and that’s a common trope that needs countering wherever its head crops up. Racism denied just festers and grows, it doesn’t go away.
Via Beppie in comments: even Flickr has its troglodytes who get off on images fantasising about the abuse of women and also the actual intimidation of women via threats of rape and murder.
Tigtog, I want to draw your attention to some abuse and harrassment that is occurring at Flickr at the moment. One of my contacts, a woman that I know through a Female-only Self Potrait Support Group, has received death and rape threats; Flickr has done little besides suggesting that she block them. Here is her account of what has happened (Warning: this includes a copy of the original threat, and could trigger).
The men are part of a Flickr group called “Female Hanging””“ devoted solely to images of women and girls being abused and killed. None of these images have been tagged as “moderate” or “heavy”, and as such, they anyone can see them, without recieving a warning that they might view offensive comments. As of now, members of the Female Self Portait Artists’ Support Group are busy flagging these images”“ but this does not change the fact that there is a Flickr group WITH OVER 800 MEMBERS devoted solely to images of abusing women.
Right now I’m trying to raise as much awareness of this issue as possible.
Beppie notes later that this group is no longer public, but that it exists at all is troubling.
Categories: Miscellaneous
Are we all still here? 
Otterday and Open Thread 
So my plans for writing today didn’t quite work out 
Otterday! And Open Thread 
Hoyden About Town 
What’s cranking my chain right now is Vogue’s ”Make Love Not War” war-rape-pornification campaign.
*speechless*
What has me very angry at the moment is the case of the woman in the UK whose baby will be taken away by social services, not because she’s madder than the rest of society, but because she’s been more honest about it.
But worse than this, is the fact that the BBC has, so far, been entirely OBLIVIOUS to it all!!!
Jena 6. And also the fact that my pain levels have been WAY up recently, which doesn’t leave me much energy to blog about the Jena case. Yaaaar.
I’m with Mary Tracy, that’s also what’s making me mad.
The woman who sued the Nebraska judge who banned the word “rape” from her testimony about being raped has had her case thrown out of court.
I’ve been one of those progressive bloggers who’s been MIA in commenting on it. I fell for those excuses Pam highlights: “It’s not my area of expertise” and “It’s not my issue”. Admittedly as an Australian who does blog about our particular national race issues I have a better excuse than the American A-list blogs who ignored this case while talking about how the Republicans don’t care about black people, but I probably should have mentioned it anyway,
Have you been made to feel unworthy by a certain US blogger who recently wrote a “if you’re not blogging about this, because I blogged about it, you shouldn’t have written about any of the things you have previously written about and you are a piece of fluff.” I paraphrase. But, really, stuff her. There are things as bad as this going on in Australia and what US blogger has mentioned it? Not that blogger. She can take her self-righteousness and shove it.
Sorry, off-topic, but this “you must blog what I tell you to blog” shit really cheeses me off. Sometimes someone else has blogged something better; Googling readers will get them.
Shades of the Tim Blair “if you havent’ loudly denounced {insert bad thing here} you are IN FAVOUR OF {bad thing} or you are too much of a post-modern leftist to care about it. Or as Chris Clarke put it, f**k that noise.
Sorry, Lauredhel, should have been a closed italic tag after “anyway”.
I’ll fix it, Helen (seeing as it’s my post, not Lauredhel’s).
With the Jena 6, I’m mainly responding to Pam’s points about A-list American blogs that hold themselves out as, at least to some degree, blogs of record, and I wouldn’t characterise Pam’s posts along the lines of your paraphrase, so I hope we’re talking about different bloggers. I certainly didn’t think Pam was talking to all progressive bloggers, especially not to those outside the US, and yet I felt the force of her points as an invitation to some self-examination anyway. If it had been a topic I really wasn’t that involved with I would have said “fuck that noise”, but I was/am concerned about the case, I’ve read quite a bit about it and sought out more information, and yet I held off blogging anything about it because of my own personal discomfort at the “not my expertise” thing.
Grrrrrr.
So we’ve got David Cox at The Guardian telling us yet again that women are responsible for making sure we don’t get raped, because you know, we’re just like pieces of property and we should have locks put on us; our figurative locks being, of course, the clothing we wear, whether or not we should leave the house at certain times, etc*.
Meanwhile, Jessica at Feministing, reposted an old favourite: a German poster that warns men who leer at women, verbally harass women, and/or physically harass women, that they may face the following conseuquences: laughter, a face full of beer, or a slap in the face. It doesn’t take long for some men to come out of the wood work saying, “POOR US!!! Look how ready women are to hit us, simply for looking at them!” (even though it’s pretty clear that the consequence corresponding to leering was laughing).
This just has me so mad– if we women limit our activities, the way we dress, whether we choose to drink alcohol, then that’s seen as “responsible” (even though in real terms it does nothing to alter the number of rapes that occur). But if we respond in a more active way– then it’s “Oh no, the POOR ABUSED MEN!!!”
I commented about this at Feministing too, but I’m so mad, I needed further venting.
*Isn’t it funny how, when the man making these claims is a white Brit he gets taken seriously? When Australian Muslims make these claims, of course, it’s an outrage.
I wouldn’t characterise Pam’s posts along the lines of your paraphrase, so I hope we’re talking about different bloggers.
Thanks for closing the tag TT – Yes, the blogger I was talking about wasn’t Pam. Pam is wonderful!
I only just recently heard about LaVena Johnson:
http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/?p=648
and it makes me so angry that I didn’t even know about this, that she died in 2005 and there hasn’t yet been enough of a fuss made to get justice done for her, that it’s not in every news bulletin until the army is compelled to answer for itself. How can something like this NOT be the sort of story that every newspaper in the world wants on its front page? Hard proof that the list of people the government is prepared to see abused does not stop with its “enemies”, but extends to those it should cherish as its most valuable.
This causes my obstreperal lobe to throb.
Via Eric Martin at Road to Surfdom.
Riverbend has also blogged about this sort of thing.