“We let Willow cut her hair. When you have a little girl, it’s like how can you teach her that you’re in control of her body? If I teach her that I’m in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace me with some other man when she goes out in the world. She can’t cut my hair but that’s her hair. She has got to have command of her body. So when she goes out into the world, she’s going out with a command that it is hers. She is used to making those decisions herself. We try to keep giving them those decisions until they can hold the full weight of their lives.” —
(On why he let Willow cut all of her hair off)
Read more: Will Smith On Allowing Willow To Cut Her Hair: ‘She Has Got To Have Command Of Her Body’ | Necole Bitchie.com
- He raises a really great point. What would it mean to believe very early that my body was mine. That it’s not for anyone or for any particular purpose other than to be mine until I decide otherwise.
(via larepublicadedet)
I was damned near 30 before I could believe my body belonged to me & me alone. Dear people who take an issue with this,
Let the Smiths do right by their babies & shut the fuck up about how you think they should parent.
(via karnythia)
That’s a good point, Mr. Smith.
(via joamette)
Not only does that say “This is my body” but her decision was respected and that says “I have a voice” and “I deserve respect.”
(via maatcrook)
(via maatcrook)
Like much prison abolition work, the call for this anthology comes from frustration and hope: frustration with organizers against sexual assault and domestic violence who treat the police as a universally available and as a good solution; frustration with prison abolitionists who only use “domestic violence” and “rape” as provocative examples; and, frustration with academic discussions that use only distanced third-person case studies and statistics to talk about sexual violence and the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). But, this project also shares the hope and worth of working toward building communities without prisons and without sexual violence. Most importantly, it is anchored in the belief that resisting prisons, domestic violence, and sexual assault are inseparable.
This anthology is calling for writing, rants, creative non-fiction, poetry, comix, and personal essays from survivors who are interested in discussing their unique needs in anti-violence work and prison abolitionism.
(via http://survivorsinsoli.blogspot.ca/ <— see this site for more details about suggested topics and submission guidelines)
(Source: grrrlgoneriot)
No means no, even when they're toddlers -
A few people have alerted me to this video of toddlers and you can watch as a little boy hugs a little girl multiple times and each time he does, she pushes him away. A few of the times, he seems to be prompted to continue by the person with the camera. It’s a full two minutes and nothing changes – he hugs her, she pushes him away, he gets up and hugs her again and she pushes him away again.
Clearly this isn’t street harassment because they know each other and it isn’t sexual harassment because they’re toddlers and don’t have an understanding of all that, but it is a problematic situation in which adults are standing by and letting (encouraging?) this little boy to do something the girl doesn’t want him to do and then instead of helping her use her words to tell him to stop, they’re letting her push him down over and over.
The Good Men Project linked to the video via the How to Be a Dad’s site, where the author labels the post “My Life with Women” and writes, “This one symbolizes every attempt I’ve ever made at relationships with the fairer sex… …. …. until my wife.”
The he writes, “I could be the misogynist here and make some comments about just how badly the lady little treats this fine, young man, but women are pretty great. Maybe this kid needs to get a job, buy a sweet ride (Power Wheels, perhaps?) and learn some Karate, proving himself a worthy love interest?”
And I find that very problematic. Implying that this little toddler and all women who reject men are stuck-up, bitchy, and only after good-looking or rich men is harmful. Instead of looking at the actions and saying, this girl doesn’t want to be hugged, they are focusing on the poor boy and how mean she is. She may have 10 reasons or only 1 for why she doesn’t want to be hugged by him and all of them are valid and should be respected.
No means no, even when you’re a toddler. Especially when you’re a toddler. Fifteen percent of sexual assault and abuse victims are under age 12. Teaching kids how to protect themselves at a very young age is crucial to helping them know how to prevent or get help if they are victimized and can teach them skills they can use all of their life.
This attitude that women owe men attention no matter what contributes to how, when some men are ignored or rejected by the women they harass on the street, they call them a bitch, a ho, throw trash at them, chase them, or tell them they were ugly anyway. Instead of thinking logically about all the reasons why a woman may not respond positively to a man who hollers at her on the street, men feel it is an affront on their masculinity and lash out.
Another problematic aspect of the video is the number of people who applauded how persistent the kid is. Some people in the comments of posts talked about being disappointed he never got her in the end. Guess what, you don’t always “get the girl” in the end. No means no! 1,006,970 women and 370,990 men are stalked annually in the U.S. We need to teach kids, especially boys because they are the bulk of the stalkers, not to follow or keep hugging etc women and girls who clearly don’t want that attention.
So those are my thoughts on the video, what are yours?
source: http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/2012/05/toddlers/
Unfortunately we don’t live in a “culture of consent.” Consent doesn’t mean a damn thing to most people. Instead, people feel entitled to do whatever the fuck they want simply because they’re physically able to and that is my biggest problem with the toddler video. That little boy wants to hug the little girl and is physically able to do so therefore he does DESPITE the fact that she repeatedly uses negative feedback methods to communicate her non-consent. She actively denies her consent to his invasion of her physical space and not only does he ignore it but the adults ignore it too. This is a teaching moment and both of those kids are learning valuable lessons. That little boy is learning that it’s perfectly fine for him to do whatever the fuck he wants and that not only will there be no negative consequences for violating consent but there will actually be positive consequences for it considering that the adult involved is encouraging his behavior. Meanwhile the little girl is learning the same thing - other people will violate her consent as though they have the right to do so, people who see it happening will encourage it and provide positive reinforcement for that behavior no matter how hard she fights to maintain her own agency, and in the end the only person she can count on for protection or to care about her consent is herself.
Since shit like this is what kids are being taught from day one it’s hardly surprising that when they grow up to be adults they act the same way only it becomes rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse, and sexual harassment. This is rape culture in action and the only hope for ending it is for us to actively create a culture of consent, a culture in which consent is the most important thing in any and all interactions no matter what.
This so much. I have similar feelings about photos that were are supposed to find funny of toddlers crying on Santa’s lap. As if somehow a child forcibly having their boundaries crossed is humorous. I think the bodily autonomy of children is a really interesting and important aspect of rape culture and one I hope to explore more.
(Source: captain-sonic, via iamthecrime)
From One Survivor to Another: Surviving Today -
I made a new tumblr called Surviving Today for posts catered to survivors of abuse/sexual abuse/sexual assault/etc, as well as a safe space to vent and share. Sometimes you just need to be around people that get it. I understand.Surviving Today is password protected, because…
Seems like something some of my followers might be interested in!
a certain kind of sadness: Consent -
I believe I’ve seen a comprehensive description of consent once before. Figured I’d contribute as it’s a subject that bears repeating.
Consent is:
- Non-coercive: If you’re cojoling, threatening or otherwise trying to “convince” someone to engage in a sexual act with you, you…
“Many men who harass women say their intent is to compliment them, but why do they usually not “compliment” women who are accompanied by other men and often only do it when a woman is alone? Why do they tend to object to other men “complimenting” their female significant other (if applicable), female friends, or female family members? Why do some men grow hostile and violent when women do not thank them and act flattered? Why do they feel compelled to compliment women at all? Rarely are they expecting a date. Many times they do not even wait to see a woman’s reaction as they fly by in their car or as they turn to start harassing the next woman. They are doing it to exert their power, to entertain their friends, to relieve boredom, or do demonstrate that they can evaluate a complete stranger to her face, just because she is a woman.” —
Stop Street Harassment: Holly Kearl (via completelymoribund)
YES! SPOT ON!
(via yellow-dress)
These are some great points
(via fieryaffair)
“Being touched by a stranger and told that I was beautiful didn’t make me feel more beautiful; it made me feel unimportant. It made me feel like what I wanted – to go from home to work with a quick stop at Starbucks on the way, without being harassed – didn’t matter. What mattered most was that this man had an opinion about me, so I had to hear it whether I wanted to or not. He wanted to touch me, so I was going to be touched, by a stranger, whether I wanted it or not.” —
Why do strange men think they’re allowed to touch me? (via arbagalapa)
This.
(via goodconsentrules)
“It’s a sad irony that we promote self-defense classes as a way of combating violence against women, yet many of the women of color, trans and cis alike, are currently imprisoned precisely because they fought back against violence in their homes and in the streets.
Too often trans and queer women of color survive violence in their homes and on the streets only to have the police, courts and prison-industrial complex come after them for having the audacity to survive in a world where, as Audre Lorde said in her poem “A Litany For Survival,” they “were never meant to survive.”
— The Trans Women’s Anti-Violence Project: Self-Defense and the Criminalization of Survival (via transgenderexpress)
(via seriouslyamerica)
President Obama, at the Women’s Leadership Forum yesterday, on the GOP’s assault on women’s health
Chills