“[L]aw no longer includes obedience among a wife’s duties, and every woman citizen has become a voter; these civil liberties remain abstract if there is no corresponding economic autonomy; the kept woman--wife or mistress--is not freed from the male just because she has a ballot paper in her hands; while today’s customs impose fewer constraints... Continue Reading →
“Many people have rightly asked, “What is the macho paradox?” [...] If you are a man, it is a lot easier to be sexist and abusive toward women--or remain silent in the face of other men’s abuse--than it is to speak out against sexism. It is ironic that men who speak out against men’s violence... Continue Reading →
“The 20-plus years of my professional life as clinical psychologist has been spent working with women who hate their bodies--women who feel “too fat,” although most of them are not “fat.” [...] They feel they have failed at being beautiful [...]. They have allowed me to see that their body hatred registers, silently, voicelessly, in... Continue Reading →
“Not all men need to use violence to reinforce their dominance. In fact, the more disadvantaged and marginalised men may use violence against women because it is the only form of dominance they can access. Upper-class and middle-class men often do not need to resort to violence against women as frequently because they have access... Continue Reading →
“Bacchi (1999) has been concerned for some years with the ways in which terms like ‘domestic violence’, ‘sexual harassment’ and ‘violence against women’ reflect particular representations of problems that often obscure or distort what the problem actually is. [...] I suggest that one of the key problems for addressing sexual and other forms of violence against... Continue Reading →
“Such ‘risk management’ or ‘rape avoidance’ approaches to sexual violence prevention are highly problematic for several reasons. First, risk management represents an inaccurate model of sexual violence victimisation, as even women who follow the safety guidelines may still become victims (see Carmody, 2006[*]; Lawson & Olle, 2006[**]; Neame, 2003[***]). Indeed, the list of behaviours women... Continue Reading →
There is no difference between being raped And going head first through a windshield Except that afterward you are afraid not of cars, But half the human race. Excerpt from Marge Piercy. Rape Poem.
"I was nervous about adequately concealing my pistol that morning and carrying it into public space, but as a researcher, I was even more curious about what it was like to carry a gun on an everyday basis. Would it feel different to grab a cup of coffee knowing that I was armed with a... Continue Reading →
"“The withness of the body”: the body as not “me” but “with” me is at the same time the body that is inescapably “with me.” Like a Siamese twin, neither one with me nor separable from me, my body has “followed me since the black womb held,” moving where I move, accompanying my every act.... Continue Reading →
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBFdX37Qpnk The obvious narrative arc of the video is one of a boy who has lost his father in the Iraq War; but underlying this narrative is another that tells the story of the boy being taught to be a man. Morello [guitarist of Audioslave] explained: It's a story of a woman who loses her... Continue Reading →
Sociological Fragments 