Category Archives: Feminism

A Feminist View of Cologne: ‘The Current Outrage Is Very Hypocritical’ – SPIEGEL ONLINE

Wizorek: But it is also wrong to look only at the origin of the perpetrators. When I see the kinds of people that are now jumping into the debate over women’s rights, it also includes, among others, the same politicians who, during the #aufschrei debate in 2013, said that women shouldn’t be so demanding. Now that men with immigration backgrounds have committed sexual assaults, it is being instrumentalized in order to stigmatize them as a group. I think that is racist.

SPIEGEL: Do you consider Ms. Schwarzer to be a racist?

Wizorek: It is racist to act as though it is only immigrant men who (commit sexual assault). I would really like to see a more nuanced debate about sexual violence. Such violence is a problem for all of society, for all genders, and it cannot be allowed to become the standard in gender debates that only male migrants are considered to be those responsible.

Schwarzer: It is always the right move to take a closer look. Of course we in Europe also have epidemic, structural sexual violence. Violence is always the dark core of dominance. The men who are now coming to us from Islamic cultural circles are, of course, shaped by conditions there, which are still much more antiquated than here. That’s a problem that we have ignored for far too long. In the name of a false tolerance, we have accepted that women are kept at home like prisoners and are forcibly married.

Wizorek: But now we have reached the core of the issue. We have to engage an integration debate, not an exclusionary debate.

Schwarzer: But who’s leading an exclusionary debate?

Wizorek: The majority society in Germany.

Schwarzer: I’d like to tell you something about majority society. Majority society has really been taken for a ride over the past 25 years. There was and there is a growing uneasiness within majority society as a result of this false tolerance. Parallel societies have emerged. A young woman can no longer go through certain neighborhoods without one of the young men shouting, “You slut!” Friends of mine who live in Kreuzberg (eds. note: a neighborhood in Berlin with a large Muslim population) have told me about it.

Wizorek: I live in Berlin and I have never heard that in Kreuzberg.

Schwarzer: Then you’ve been lucky. But if we keep denying that there are problems with some male immigrants, then we will just drive the people into the arms of the right-wing populists. Without the ignorance or the trivialization on the part of all the political parties, there would be no Pegida (eds. note: a xenophobic movement based in Dresden) or Alternative for Germany (eds. note: a new, and growing right-wing populist party in Germany).

Wizorek: I am not denying that the patriarchal structures are stronger in some countries than in Germany. But the core of the problem is not Islam, it is patriarchy.

Source: A Feminist View of Cologne: ‘The Current Outrage Is Very Hypocritical’ – SPIEGEL ONLINE

Former Political Prisoner Wai Wai Nu on Discrimination, the Rohingya People, and the Future of Myanmar | wnn interviews global

I am hopeful. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is very much eager to promote rule of law, so I believe she has a plan to do this. We want to see less discrimination, less arbitrary arrests, less killings. I think she can revoke some of these repressive and unnecessary laws. In terms of what she can do immediately in Rakhine State, I think she could work to return IDPs and work for proper resettlement, as well as remove the restrictions faced by the Rohingya in regards to education, movement and both general and reproductive healthcare. Those are some of the easier jobs for her to do, but even then I could see it taking two to three years.

Source: Former Political Prisoner Wai Wai Nu on Discrimination, the Rohingya People, and the Future of Myanmar | wnn interviews global

How Syrian refugees helped an American student during the Cologne attacks | Germany | DW.COM | 17.01.2016

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But the police outside weren’t much use. Overwhelmed by the mass of people in the main square in front of the station and trying to keep the situation under control, the authorities ended up forcing Duncan back into the crowd. From there, she found herself surrounded by another group of young men who started grabbing her body, pulling her hair and trying to push her down.”At that point I was pretty stressed-out, and pretty scared, ” she said.Unbeknownst to the American at the time, she was caught up in an event that would make headlines around the world and throw intense scrutiny on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policies in Germany. Hundreds of women reported being assaulted around the train station that night, mostly by men who appeared to be of North African or Arab descent. Since then, concern has grown in some circles about the possibility of truly integrating Middle Eastern refugees into Germany, and Merkel’s government has ramped up efforts to deport many of them back to their home countries.While the media coverage of that night shed light on many horrifying episodes, it also had the effect of obscuring some of the more positive developments. Duncan’s experience is one such example.After she managed to break away from the crowd, the American once again talked to the police – who, once again, seemed incapable of helping her. Desperate to find her boyfriend, who had her wallet and her phone, she hung around the edges of the crowd, scared and frustrated.Around that time, a young Middle Eastern man came up to her and asked, in German, if he could help her. Since she didn’t speak German and he didn’t speak English, the man called over one of his friends, Hesham Ahmad Mohammad, who did speak English.’We can help you’ Despite the fallout from the events, Ahmad Mohammad says he’s not afraidA 32-year-old former teacher, Ahmad Mohammad had, along with his four friends, braved an arduous journey from his native Syria to reach Germany, where he had been living for six months. The trek had taken the group to Turkey, then to Greece by boat, then through Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and Austria, until finally they reached the Bavarian city of Passau.The five men, all of whom now lived in different parts of western Germany and had therefore not seen each other since their arrival, had chosen to reunite in Cologne for New Year’s Eve. But what they saw when they arrived at the central station shocked them. The people were extremely rowdy, Ahmad Mohammad said, and he even witnessed an attempted robbery.”We knew [shortly after we arrived] that that’s a dangerous place for us, because we saw that many people were drinking and they lost their minds,” he told DW.When he and his friends came across Duncan, he said the American was crying and clearly “afraid of all men.”After a while he convinced Duncan to let them help her. “At that time she said to me, ‘I’ve lost my friend and I am alone. I am American. I am here alone.’ I said to her, ‘You must stop crying. We can help you.'”As she set out once more to find her boyfriend, Ahmad Mohammad accompanied her. He said ten other men attempted to harass her, but he shielded her from them. Soon, his other friends also came to her aid, forming a circle around her.

Source: How Syrian refugees helped an American student during the Cologne attacks | Germany | DW.COM | 17.01.2016

An alarming 36% of women in Canadian prisons are Indigenous

{Canadians have a global reputation for being kind – grin. It seems that their reputation should be “some kind of racist!” when it comes to First Nation peoples.}

These numbers are connected to the history of colonialism, a legacy of sex abuse in the residential school system, missing & murdered Indigenous women, as well as the ‘60s scoop‘, all of which disproportionately affect women and girls. (The term ‘60s scoop‘ refers to the staggering numbers of ‘adoptions’ in 1960s enabled by the abduction of children from their homes and communities without the knowledge or consent of families and bands. The Federal government and social workers acted under the ‘colonialistic assumption that native people were culturally inferior and unable to adequately provide for the needs of the children.’)First Nations communities have called these acts genocide, while governments continue to resist the term. Shamiran Mako, a Canadian scholar, sees a pattern of opposition from countries with a history of colonization, and especially from countries that “had some systematic laws that either resulted in genocide or cultural genocide of the indigenous population.”Despite being identified yearly as a both a priority and human rights concern, Sapers said efforts to decrease these numbers are not working, and identified major gaps and issues including: lack of coherent implementation of the recommendations made by the Truth And Reconciliation Commission, and legislative provisions that were chronically under-funded, under-utilized and unevenly applied by the correctional service.There remains an urgent need for accountability and reform at a federal level to Indigenous People and First Nations in Canada, and increased services and support to prevent criminalization.

Source: An alarming 36% of women in Canadian prisons are Indigenous

New York City Council Member Shuts Down Victim Blaming in Two Minutes Flat

Cumbo — without missing a beat — explained:That’s typical of just what I spoke about: that individuals often talk about the woman, they rarely talk about the individuals who actually committed the rape. Those are the individuals that need to be focused on right now [….] We shouldn’t talk about whether she was drunk, we shouldn’t talk about whether she was properly dressed, we shouldn’t talk about the time of evening that it happened. That is too typical of how we discuss rape in the city, the nation, and really the world. We need to focus in this situation on those five individuals that committed this heinous crime and what were the bad decisions that they made all throughout the day.Cumbo goes on to speak eloquently about the systematic neglect and marginalization that Black folks — particularly Black women — suffer, and concludes with an affirmation that “whether you are on the Upper East Side or in Brownsville, all women matter, and we’re here to make sure that message is sent loud and clear.”

Source: New York City Council Member Shuts Down Victim Blaming in Two Minutes Flat

What we talk about when we talk about women and aging | Fit and Feminist

We are told we will become invisible. That we will be ugly hags that no one will ever desire sexually again.  That we will be biologically worthless once we can no longer bear children.Lies. It’s all lies. It’s not our aging they fear.  It’s our power.  Confident women still scare the shit out of many people in our society. What better way to undermine that confidence than by making us terrified of the single biological reality we cannot escape no matter what we do?We’re scary because we see through your bullshit. We’re scary because we don’t need your approval.  We’re scary because we don’t need you.

Source: What we talk about when we talk about women and aging | Fit and Feminist

vintage everyday: 10 Surprising Things American Women Couldn’t Do in the 1960s

 

10 Surprising Things American Women Couldn’t Do in the 1960s

It was not so long ago that these things below were the reality for women. If you’re 45 or older, you were born into this world. Have a look back at 10 surprising things women could not do in the 1960s:

Source: vintage everyday: 10 Surprising Things American Women Couldn’t Do in the 1960s

Mobs and Counter-Mobs: Pitfalls, Prejudice and the Cologne Sexual Assaults – SPIEGEL ONLINE

The events in Cologne were perpetrated by a sexist criminal mob — and have triggered the rise of racist digital mob in response. The incident has shown that much of the public doesn’t care much about sexual violence, unless it comes from foreigners.

Source: Mobs and Counter-Mobs: Pitfalls, Prejudice and the Cologne Sexual Assaults – SPIEGEL ONLINE

The sudden interest in women’s rights is feigned and is nothing other than a fake argument to legitimize one’s own racism. The trivialization of sexual violence is ubiquitous and deeply rooted in society and culture — German society and culture as well. The Cologne attacks on women perpetrated by mobs of men would have been a fitting occasion to address this state of affairs and to figure out why the majority of the German public cares so shockingly little about sexual violence — unless it is committed by “men with a North African or Arab appearance.”

Parallel to this is the fact that demands for a harsh reaction by law enforcement officials are silly. Such a reaction is so obviously necessary and it is also extremely cheap. Harshness costs nothing.

Instead, structures and narratives must be focused on: in Muslim families and in other families, in the education system, in the civil administration, in society at large. What are the factors that contribute to the development of such mobs, beyond those that were obviously present: namely the collection of drunk, sexist, criminal men? What do officials actually do about “repeat offenders known to the police?”

How can one prevent the creation of racist counter-mobs that head off to light refugee hostels on fire because they are home to people who look similar to the Cologne perpetrators? And finally, the core question: How can one confront the (worldwide, cross-cultural, also German) problem of violence against women without acting as though it only has to do with a few criminals in Cologne?