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.
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:
So successful has white supremacist patriarchy been at convincing white women that they’re lucky to live in the U.S. and not Saudi Arabia:Iran, that so many white women didn’t pay enough attention to theocracy that white supremacy was building at home theguardian.com/us-news/2024/m…
It was being built by white men who look like their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, not the scary brown men with beards, right?
The same arrogance and naiveté that made so many white Americans think Trump would never become president is same arrogance & naiveté that made so many think "it would never happen here” whether it was destruction of abortion rights:anti-divorce laws feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-ha…
Two months into its genocide in Gaza, the more Israel displays its savagery against Palestinians, the more obvious its moral and philosophical defeat.
Militarily, Israel is armed to the teeth and propped up by the U.S., the world’s most powerful country.
And Israel is losing
The unconscionable vote against ceasefire at the UN yesterday by U.S. & abstention by the UK are reminders that while some western political powers might still be propping up Israel’s crimes,around the world more & more people vehemently oppose the genocide.
Israel is losing
Israel’s crimes are repeatedly being equated w/some of worst genocidal crimes: from ethnic cleansing and genocide in Srebrenica to the cultural genocide of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.
It has come at a staggeringly high Palestinian death toll—at least 20,000.
When the NYT is reporting it like this, something is changing
"People are being killed in Gaza more quickly, they say, than in even the deadliest moments of U.S.-led attacks in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, which were themselves widely criticized by human rights groups."
"It is not just the scale of the strikes...Israel’s liberal use of very large weapons in dense urban areas, including U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs that can flatten an apartment tower, is surprising, some experts say."
Some of you will remember that at in Sept. 2012, I was arrested in NYC for spray painting over an Islamophobic and racist pro-Israel ad.
Notice the language of the ad and how it continues to echo today. 📷 Kristy Leibowitz
Anytime you see the words “civilized” and “savage” being used, understand that the purpose is dehumanization.
I refused to allow that dehumanization to exist without challenge on the walls of the subway that I and millions of New Yorkers use.
We who oppose Israel are not savages and there are more options than Israel/Jihad. And if it makes me a savage to oppose that option, if it makes me a savage to support Palestinian freedom from apartheid, occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide, then I am a proud savage.