When female journalists have interviewed me about my book, the chapter on Violence often leads them to say “But Mona! I’m a mother of sons! How can you ask me to imagine that?”
How many rapists must we kill before men stop raping women?
And why is the first half of that question more disturbing than the second half?
Why is hypothetical violence against men more disturbing than actual daily violence against women?
What fucking world is this, where men still beat & kill us even during a pandemic?
When I ask those disturbing questions, why am I immediately told in response “But Mona, violence begets violence!”
No shit! What do centuries of patriarchal violence beget?
Women socialized into submission and told not to be violent even as a form of self-defense but to wait until men can stop being violent toward us.When that would happen exactly is unclear & quite unrealistic, seeing as patriarchy has been using violence to keep us in line forever
How many rapists must be killed before a man thinks twice before raping or sexually assaulting women and girls? I’m not talking of state-imposed death penalties. I’m talking about the end of rape because men are sufficiently scared of women that they’d never dare to rape or try.
I don't want the state to protect me, because as I have stated several times already, protection from the patriarchy is conditional. I want to be free of patriarchy, not at its mercy. feministgiant.substack.com/p/how-many-rap…
The questions I ask above were among the reasons an episode of a TV show in #Australia was banned. Banned.
As you watch the glory and power of the feminist revolution against theocrats in Iran, ask yourself where the fuck is your feminist revolution against theocrats in the U.S. feministgiant.com/p/essay-dear-w…
FEMINIST GIANT Global Roundup curated by Samiha Hossain:
-Women & Girls in Mali
-LGBTQ+ Nigerians Demand Justice
-Remembering Tina Fontaine
-Queer Black South African Art
-Britain Muslim Women Self-Defense feministgiant.com/p/global-round…
FEMINIST GIANT contributor Samiha Hossain curates twice weekly roundups of feminist resistance to global patriarchal fuckery.
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Friday’s Global Roundup curated by Samiha Hossain:
-Bulgaria LGBTQ+ Rights
-Sudanese Women Activists
-Muslim Women in Britain
-Philly Queer Birding Group
-China Women’s Secret Language feministgiant.com/p/global-round…
“…they were not playing at all, they knew exactly what they were doing…They knew the weak points of the boat, and they knew how to sink it,”
Orcas smashed a $128k yacht into pieces in the Mediterranean in a 2hr attack h/t @Cosmic_Surfer @rerutled thedailybeast.com/killer-whales-…
My love letter to Gladis Blanca, the killer whale that scientists believe began the yacht ramming along with her mother, two sisters and two daughters. It has spread since to other Orcas
"Some scientists who have studied the yacht-strike pattern believe that it is a form of play: the whales are all juveniles from the same pod, and may simply enjoy slamming sailboat rudders to watch the boats spin around."
Alice Munro chose her husband over the daughter he sexually abused.
The reason that you're seeing any defense or attempt to "understand" or deny that horror is because it's a reminder of how easily women become footsoldiers of the patriarchy.
Fame and wealth notwithstanding.
Alice Munro had both and still sold her daughter out in favour of the patriarchy.
And she reminds too many other women of how easily they footsoldier for the patriarchy too.
I have perhaps just one short story by Munro.
Her "legacy" means nothing to me.
And it should mean nothing to anyone now learning of her complicity in the sexual abuse of her daughter.
Yes, we're all "complicated" people but there's nothing complicated about enabling abuse. It's wrong.
In 1977, two years before the Soviet invasion, revolutionary women’s rights activist Meena founded RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) to fight patriarchy at every level in her country. feministgiant.com/p/fist-in-the-…
Shaima, an early member of RAWA, has explained that women in Afghanistan had to be mushti dar dahan, a term in Dari that means "a fist in the mouth," towards the men in their families, and also to society and government–i.e. State, Street, and Home. feministgiant.com/p/fist-in-the-…
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White & Christian are considered norm and not dangerous in the U.S. 👇🏽
"GOP Sen Anthony Kern & his prayer team of anti-abortion extremists praying in tongues (that’s not an audio issue) that an 1864 law banning nearly all abortion becomes law again."
It's easy to see the fascists and theocrats when they don't look like you. When they're white and Christian, their danger has not registered enough: