Fighting without violence

Why, at every juncture, with such frequency, do I feel like being a woman is having to fight?

Whether it's against the bouncer in the bar, who tells me that he won't let my 3 male friends into a bar because they don’t want a “cock fest”. So I ask him if he would prefer a “tit fest”, and he says yes. I say that he’s being sexist, staring him straight in the eyes. He smiles; I don’t. He realises how serious I am, so he capitulates, “Yes, fine, your friends can come in. And by the way, I’m not sexist”, smiling again. Yeah, right.

Whether it's against a male acquaintance, a friend of a friend, who I have known for some years. He has always been fond of me, has manifested his attraction physically, and in a way that I have never been comfortable with, mostly because of the fact that for the vast majority of the time that I have known him, I have been in a long-term, stable relationship with another person. The friend is well, well aware of my boyfriend. So why does he still hit on me, does he still place his fingers on me invasively, does he profess to harbour a shallow love for me? Why does he not adhere to my articulated clear-cut boundaries of “friendship”? Sometimes, though, I am doubtful: where I am normally more forceful, in reaction to random guys who harass me in the street or bars, my rebuffs of him have always been mild. Yet, I thought, firm. They were not the venom that I reserve for random sleazes because he comes under the category “friend”. I suppose I was more tolerant of his advances, though undesired, because of a supposed friendship and respect. But the advances never stopped.

Whether it's against my own boyfriend, or “husband” as he is known to some (we feign marriage in order to legitimise our collocation in the eyes of the more conservative segments of society.) I told him that this guy, the supposed friend, who had been with us all night had been speaking to me and touching me in a way that made me uncomfortable, compromised. I told him this, not because I wanted to start trouble, not because I wanted to stoke tensions in our social group, but because I was disturbed. And I voiced my disturbance to the person I trust most: the man who I have spent the best part of five years with. Obviously my words, my vulnerability, did not resonate. My words spoke to him more about his own insecurities, his own pride, his own frustrations or regrets that sprung from not dealing with these repeated incidents coming from the same person, than my own well-being. I had sought comfort, while instead he sought to challenge those boundaries that had been crossed. He insisted that enough was enough, and he was going outside with the bloke “to talk about it”. I asked him not to, but perhaps was not forceful enough, as he did go out to “sort it out”. Five minutes later, he’s walking back into the bar with blood on his hands after having punched the guy in the face. Great, what a really mature, thoughtful, unselfish way of dealing with the situation, oh enlightened male partner of mine. I leave the bar overwhelmed in embarrassment, guilt and rage.

Whether it's against a faceless stranger who assaults me on a deserted flight of stairs as I try to escape all the stifling chauvinism that surrounded me that fateful Friday night. I see him descending the staircase behind me, him on the right and I on the left. About half-way down, out of the corner of my eye, I notice him moving in my direction. My immediate thought is that he is going into one of the entrances of the apartment buildings that line the staircase. But before I realise it, he is putting his arm around my head, his hand around my mouth, pressing his weight against me and pushing my body down towards the ground. Somewhere there is something sharp, maybe a key, and it scratches against my neck. His other hand yanks at my handbag. I scream with all my fucking might, scream. Screaming, over and over and over. As I scream, the thought flashes into my mind that I know, I know in all my time spent engaging in issues of violence against women, that screaming is the best way of deterring an aggressor. So I scream until it rips the back of my throat. And it works. I hear a window bang overhead, and he lets go of me and starts running back up the stairs, reaching the top just as a door at the side opens and a man steps out. I have stopped screaming, and I am caught between hysterical sobs and choked words of explanation. “Harami”, I manage to utter. “Thief”, as I enter the safety of a shard of light escaping from the open door.

Whether its against that very sleepy shop owner, that angel in disguise, without whose presence I dare not think what would have happened on that staircase. That kindly man who offers me water and tries to calm me down, but insists on saying “women should not walk alone at night.” But why? Why can't a woman effectuate a short 10-minute walk home in her own neighbourhood? Why are we made to be afraid?

All this occured, believe it or or not, within half and hour on a Friday night.

Now, the next day, I cannot wrap my head around the violence. The violence of prejudice, the violence of sexual objectification, the violence of uncontrolled jealousy and pride, the violence of harsh assault.

Why is there so much violence?

Why are women so often reduced to the sum of their physical parts?

Why are women used as an excuse for men to be violent towards one another?

Why do women have to be afraid to walk alone at night?

Why is there so, so much violence?

It is the fear of violence that oppresses us. Yet it is the anger about such violence that mobilises us.

Yes, I am left with a festering anger. I'm angry at the bouncer for his shameless exhibition and denial of sexism. I'm pissed off at my so-called “friend” for repeatedly groping me, disrespecting me. I'm angry at myself for not having been forceful enough. I'm furious at my boyfriend for his lack of self-control and punching someone in the face. I'm livid at the prowling assailant, whose footsteps and approaching silhouette will now haunt me when I walk alone in the dark.

The great challenge, I suppose, is to allow neither my anger nor my fear to push me to reproduce violence. The challenge, now, is for me to transform these negative, traumatic experiences, into a productive outlook, a proactive stance that will say: I will continue to fight. I will continue to express my dissatisfaction with sexism; I will continue to not let people touch me in a way that I am uncomfortable with; I will continue to combat violent solutions of problems; I will continue to scream when I am most threatened.

I will not let my fear, my anger, prevail. I will stuggle to not give into them, allow them to harness me, to inhibit me, to silence me. I will sum up all of my forces so that, at the end of it all, it is the anger and the fear that will give me strength to keep fighting. But to fight with my words, because I feel that is the only way to exhibit a strong, viable alternative to the violence that I have seen.

Sex work. What’s feminism got to do with it? - Discussion

We don't usually promote events or discussions on the blog, but this discussion is different. This is one of the most controversial issues that we are supposed to deal with as the feminist collective per se, or as feminists in general.
Please find below the invitation to the discussion.

Sex work often puts feminists in difficult positions. On the one hand, many feminists consider that ‘selling one’s body’ cannot be understood outside of patriarchal mechanisms that keep women, and gender non-conform persons, oppressed. That it amounts to violence against women. On the other hand, many feminists know that self-organizing and claiming one’s rights is the way to transform the world. And that this by no means differs for sex workers. “Only rights can stop the wrongs,” says the slogan of sex workers groups all over the world. This talk tells the story of how within a transnational European queer feminist and anti-racist network, called NextGenderation, we came to wrap our heads and hearts around sex work, when we were confronted with the strong refusal of a mainstream women’s movement to acknowledge the complexities and the issues at stake in sex work. We’d like to share our trajectory until now, in order to continue the discussion together.

About Us, And Them.

I remember— back in ‘06, when a bunch of us were helping CRTDA gather signatures at AUB, in support of their Nationality campaign. A boy signed his name on the petition, then he asked me: would this mean that a woman would be able to give her Lebanese nationality to Syrians? And I said: yeah.

So he just scratched his name from that petition and walked away.

Strange how that ability, that power of women to determine who to give their nationality to, scares people. Like we have the power to change the entire demographics of this country. Like we can turn this country into a Palestinian state, into a sub-Syrian state.

Strange how racism works with sexism and with classism. Swayable, easily seducible, women can sleep with the “enemy.” Poor women, women of certain regions/sects, have lots and lots of babies, tipping the sectarian balance to “their” favour. Them. The Syrian workers. The Palestinian refugees. And then there are the migrant domestic workers. The women. The women of da7hyi and the South. The sexually active women. They’re all equally threatening. To the nation. To the middle class. To the family.

Sometimes I think that some men (particularly the very sexist ones) are more aware of our capabilities and potentials than we are ourselves. I don’t mean our abilities to change the distribution of the population in that racist/sectarian way, like that AUB boy was afraid of. I mean our ability to change things for the better. To introduce new ways of understanding things.

And that’s why we’re here. Because we see things differently, because we can see how things are wrong, from the little things that we have grown numb to, like the pressure on women to conform to impossible beauty standards, like street harassment, to more blunt things like how migrant workers are treated, how women can’t give their nationalities to their husbands and kids, how there are no laws against domestic violence and marital rape. And because we know we can/must change that.

That’s why we’re here.

What is Feminism?

So what happens when you give a Chantal a camera and permission to harass feminists with a simple question:

What is feminism?



Enjoy :)

First (woman) judge in Dubai

Source: Dubai appoints 27-year-old as first woman judge By Bassam Za'za' on Gulf News.

Apparently Dubai appoints a woman judge, I can't really say I saw that coming. it's a pleasant surprise of course. But then again, how much do we know about this lady? From this article we can only know that she is 27, has a masters (with distinction from the police academy) and an experience in education. The four other (men) judges that were appointed apparently have only bachelor degrees in law (or law and sharia).

Interesting, non?

Disabling people out of habit - Marvelous world of Sexual Harassment

Again, I need to vent! A couple of days ago I finished reading one of the very few studies in the Middle East about sexual harassment. Not surprisingly, the study comes from the Egypt, one of the very few countries that have finally broken the wall of silence around street harassment. I expected it to be bad. I expected to find an outrageously high percentage of women that have been subject to street harassment (83% for Egyptian female citizens), I expected them to blame the woman’s outfit (62.5% assumed that a woman is more likely to get harassed if she is wearing a provocative outfit) only to contradict themselves a few seconds later (31% of the women who had confirmed being the victims of street harassment also confirmed that they are usually veiled and decently dressed when harassment takes place).
In my mind, I expected all that, but what I did not expect is how men willingly admitted that they had often harassed women on the street (62.4%), shamelessly as if they were doing nothing wrong going as far as pointing/hinting at or exposing bodyparts (4.3%) and a decent percentage even admitted they don’t even feel anything when they do these crimes, they just do them out of habit (19.3%).
Now that shocked me! What does this mean? What does it say about our society? I just think we live in a very sick society where degrading and humiliating women just because they are women have become the norm. When you know that 83% of women are fully aware of the fact that they are harassed, their humanity is aggressed. They are aware of how damaging this is but no one does anything about it. We don’t even want to talk about it.
This has reached a point where men don’t even see anything wrong with what they do, they admit that they harass women as if they are just stating that they like football. Women are afraid to go down to the street and avoid doing so, they have nightmares and depressions, their academic and professional productivity are reduced. Why? What for? Whereas some men enjoy it, others feel nothing at all, they just do it as a habit… Just a habit… For a retarded, stupid habit, women are deprived of the street that should be theirs just as it is anyone else’s.
Men often brag about how they are better drivers, how they are more productive at work, more successful in everything, more confident. And I have a question that anyone is kindly asked to answer: if you had to go through a debilitating experience, such as walking on the street when you are a woman; If your space is either limited to the safety of your home; if every excursion is a terrifying experience… would you be able to compete, excel and perform?
Most men adopting this oppressive patriarchal system are more vulnerable and weak than any other creature, but they are protected by patriarchy, by the fact that they can let out any anger or feeling of weakness on women, yes women, Women on the street, family members at home, or female colleagues. That is the sad truth of this great value that we defend so fiercely, our values in this beautiful Middle East have been degraded to humiliating women just because they are women who breathe.

The study is written in Arabic and I would recommend you read it: غيوم في سماء مصر

Attending Lade’s workshop:

So I was attending this workshop today, it was organized by LADE or the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections. But I will not go through the details of the workshop, there is only one detail that made me smile (but not in a so positive way). You see at a certain point, there was some chaos which is understandable it was the after lunch session and everyone was a bit tired.

But what I found typical and unacceptable, was that one of the opinions was expressed by a young, intelligent woman. She was repeatedly interrupted by an older man who just happens to be a professor in some university. I wouldn’t have given it that much importance if it would have happened like twice or three times and if it wasn’t so evident. Nermine (the young woman) would start her sentence, after so much effort to get the attention that should not be so difficult to get in this ultra-civilized and ultra-cultivated environment, only to be interrupted before she would finish. Not by someone (who is the great male professor) who is making a point opposing hers, no she would get interrupted because the guy just had a point that he was making minutes ago and didn’t deem he should wait for Nermine to finish hers. No why would he.

And if that wasn’t so compelling, then another professor named Toni, started interrupting little Nermine just the same way.

Ok so maybe it was a Nermine thing. You may say that maybe Nermine just didn’t know how to impose her own authority. But then again something slightly similar happened with another young girl. Who was expressing a very simple concept which says that regardless of whether or not media coverage for one electoral candidate was positive it is a positive thing for the candidate because it is media attention none the less. But some guy that was sitting next to her did not agree, and he insisted on his point of view without giving any substantial evidence or even thinking about what that young lady was saying.

But if you still don’t believe me then you should have been there and you would have noticed that for example women were present but did not have much to say, as participants. The most persistent commentators were men. Nermine and her friend were almost the only females that talked.

I am not saying that the organizers or facilitators were sexism or misogynists. No, they were not. And I am not saying that the professors were consciously interrupting or silencing the women. No they were not aware of it. But in our minds (all of us) respect is always more due to older, men with degrees than it is to younger women. And again if you do not believe all you have to do, is google professor, and tell me at which page will you find the first woman?

Sexual Harassment - The Frustration

I always knew I would end up working on street harassment, I just knew it. At times I felt it's too much work to do, that it's too big for me or even for civil society all together to work, at times I thought that the world is just waiting for my signal and that I will change the WORLD.
So I finally got my act together and started writing this plan, how to eradicate street harassment... right? And in my head it seemed like such a cool plan.
Now I after spending a very long weekend writing and fixing the plan I was only done with 50% of the first draft of the plan and then more time passed and I worked even more. I still had like 20% but I was stuck. So I thought I'd research what others have done and now I am not sure how to quantify that I have over with.
There were and there are lots of people working on street harassment, it's an agonizing job. The more I work the more I realize my work is so far from being complete. I never understood how can writing a plan take so much time, but now I understand. It's like the more you do the more you find out you need to do more.
I am not sure if I am supposed to be thrilled about that or frustrated. On one hand, harassment is very personal, very intimate, very complicated and each survivor has to go deep inside her/his being to find answers to harassment, its motives and its mechanisms. But at the same time, the woman's body has always been the battlefield of the most political/public war ever (and no, the use of "ever" is not exaggerated).
Society has to change, women have to change, men have to change, you have to change, I have to change, you and me have to change.
That's a lot of "changes" that need to take place, don't you think? And all this to stop sexually frustrated and blind mobs from scaring the shit of every penis-deprived person on earth.
Back to the plan I guess.

إنو معليش

من فترة كنت عم بقرا مقالة من السفير، عنوانها: إمرأة نصف عارية مجرد «شيء» لدى الرجل

هلق طولوا بالكن وسمعوني شوي، تعوا لنحلل المكتوب بالسفير والمكتوب بالدايلي تلغراف (المصدر)... أول شي، السفير بتأكد إنو "الرجال" بيشوفو النساء النصف عاريات على إنن أشياء. بالوقت اللي ريتشارد ألاين أكد نقلاً عن سوزان فسك إنو الرجال المعروفين على إنن عنصريين ضد المرأة بيتفاعلوا مع صور النساء النصف عاريات متل ما بيتفاعلوا مع صور أشياء
ما بعرف أنا بحس في فرق... مجتمعنا اللبناني بيمتاز بالذكورية والإجحاف بس إنو نقول إنو الجال بيشوفو النسوان النص عاريات على إنن أشياء... سمكن فيا شويّة ظلم بحق الرجال كلن
واللي مش مصدقني يقرا المقالين ويصلّحلي

On Idols and Islam

As an Islamic/Arab child, I was raised on Islamic beliefs and how Mohammad came and told people about God, saving humanity through the Koran. We heard all the stories about how he marched to the Ka3be, and destroyed all the stone idols, throwing them away and ending the adoration of idols in his time.

Personally, I was always fascinated by the way people told these stories. And I used to agree: we "should" only worship a one and only God.

After hanging out with way too many radical feminists, I started hearing about goddesses. And these immortal figures where each god and goddess represented something different. All of my life I've heard about how islam fought against idols. And now I was shocked to hear about goddesses and deities. And there was this contradiction in my head…

Now I realize that the stone idols were representations of these goddesses… people didn't worship stone! They worshiped the gods! And they created a symbol to represent them… just as we have the sword of Ali, or the Cross in Christianity.

And then I started researching these goddesses online. And I couldn't find anything written positively about lilith. Although from what I heard and understood: she represented the women who refused to obey the first man Adam. She rebelled.

During my research, I found out that she is said to be evil. She disobeyed god. She ran away from heaven, and then god sent her two guys to tell her that she had to submit and come back to heaven. She refused. They told her that as a punishment, she was no longer able to give birth! To revenge against her cruel sterilization, she said that from now on she was going to kill other mothers' babies. At the same time feminist describe her as a woman who wanted to be on top.

And then in the islamic world, lilith is said to have slept with devil and that was how jinn were born

I was intrigued because…in islam, jinn came before adam! Wtf?!

And then there is a resemblance between the devil and lilith because they both refused to submit to adam and they were both kicked out of heaven. And they made a promise to god that they would have a way to come back at god.

And so, after what I just learned through my research, and what I have learned all my life , I know that I wanna be a believer of the one and only God and his prophet, but also of the goddesses that represent something that I did not find in religion.

Zainab

أبناء الجزائريات جزائريون

Today I was refered to this article in Assafir Online  magazine: أبناء الجزائريات جزائريون 

Now the article quotes the Associated Press but provides no link. So with the intention to write about this in this lovely blog I started searching for the Associated Press article that reported this major improvement in Women's rights in Algeria.

Now you do the experiment, google "algeria citizenship rights for women Associated Press". The result is mind blowing if you think of it:

1. The first 4 results talk about Lebanese women's struggle
   for citizenship rights.
2. In the first page only 3 out of the 9 results also spoke of the
   Lebanese women's struggle for citizenship rights.

Halla2 first of all, I would like to give a HUGE hug to feminists and
women's rights activists in Algeria, you have achieved a great
milestone. Now I have not yet worked on that issue, I haven't even
cooperated with the CRTD on this issue. But I know how difficult it
can be and how resistant patriarchies are to giving anything to
women.

On the other hand, I think of the Lebanese Activists that have been
struggling so hard and for so long for this very basic right. No this
is not right, it is not really my problem if anyone worries about the
demographic balance in this country. I will not pay my rights as a
citizen for peace in this country. Not because I am not into peace,
but simply because, this system failed to preserve peace with
or without giving woment their citizenship rights. I don't see how
depriving women (and so many other minorities) of their rights
has helped prevent any of the wars that took place in my beautiful
country. So give me a break for once, try it my way, try giving
people their individual rights for a change and let's see if we will
have peace or not.

من... فعلاً من؟

من اختار اسمها؟

من أخبرها أنها فتاة وأنّ عليها الالتزام بدفتر تعليمات يولد مع الفتيات في العالم العربي؟

من رسم لها طريق مستقبلها منذ كانت في عامها الأوّل... قل في يومها الأوّل؟

من منعها من ممارسة مهنةٍ صنّفت بقاموس المجتمع مهنةً للرجال؟

من أقنعها بأنها لا تستطيع مقاومة الاحتلال في الميدان وفي ساحة المعركة وأن تحمل السلاح دون منّةٍ من أحد؟

من وضعها في إطار خشبي ولمّعه وزيّنه وعلّقه على الحائط أو في المطبخ؟

من حصر اهتماماتها بالفنّ والجمال والموضة والأولاد؟

من قمع رغباتها وألبسها قميص العفّة غصباً عنها فنمت العُقد والأمراض في جسدها وعقلها؟

من علّمها الخوف من جسدها والخجل به؟

من حلّل قتلها حفاظاً على «الشرف»؟

من ربط تحرّرها وحريتها بالابتذال والملابس الفاضحة والـ«بوتوكس»؟

من علّمها أنّ الرجل هو من يحميها وأنّ رضاه مقدّس؟

من سمح للدين بأن يتدخّل في شؤونها ليحلّل ويحرّم تبعاً لمزاج «رجل» دين؟

من أرعبها من الحبّ ومن السعادة؟

من قسّم مجتمعها إلى «بنت منيحة» و«بنت عاطلة»؟

من قال لها إن اللون الأبيض هو الأنسب لفستان الزفاف... ما المشكلة بالأزرق أو الأحمر أو الأخضر؟

من عمّم عبارة «عريس بالبيت ولا شهادة عالحيط» (أنا لا أمزح العبارة فعلاً متداولة وبكثرة)؟

من جعل اللون الزهري القبيح لوناً بنّاتياً؟

من كوّن وعيها الثقافي انطلاقاً من روايات دانيال ستيل وبربرا كارتلند؟

من عوّدها الابتسام أو حتى الضحك في كل مرة تسمع فيها نكتة أو تقرأ رسالة إلكترونية تختصر المرأة بصدرها وأردافها ومؤخرتها؟

من خاف من تمرّدها فحجب عنها تاريخ ليلى خالد وجميلة بو حيرد وروايات نوال السعداوي وأحلام مستغانمي؟

ليال حداد - جريدة الأخبار - مصدر