The "True" Women Manifesto

I've been finding some real gems around campus lately, in the form of church pamphlets. I hate religion just as much as the next atheist, but if there is anything I hate more, it's religion's way of enforcing patriarchy upon its female followers.

See, to me, I feel like feminism and freethinking go hand in hand. You can't just pick and choose what is literally interpreted from the bible and what is supposed to be an analogy for something else- it's impossible, and I think that is well evidenced by the many facets of Christianity that exist and preach today.  Here's a few winning passages from the True Women Manifesto, written by those at the Revive Our Hearts ministry.

• "We are called as women to affirm and encourage men as they seek to express godly masculinity, and to honor and support God-ordained male leadership in the home and in the church.”
• "Men and women are created by God and are equal in value and dignity, but they have distinct roles and functions in the church."
• "Seek to glorify God by cultivating such virtues as purity, modesty, submission, meekness, and love."
• "all women are to model femininity in their various relationships, by exhibiting a distinctive modesty, responsiveness, and gentleness of spirit."

Oh, just shut up already.

Classic Denial: TW: Sexual Assault

There is nothing more triggering than having your experience with sexual assault be questioned and watered down. I'm fairly open about my own experience with date rape among certain groups- in Feminist or progressive minded campus clubs, among friends, and in group therapy, but I've always struggled with telling my story to people when it's a one on one situation. When you're being scrutinized by a single person, the tension is heavy because there just isn't anywhere else for it to go.

I was at a bar last night with an old mutual friend of my assailant. He was aware when my relationship was my assailant was taking place, and had expressed many times that he thought his manipulation over me was fucked up, so I assumed it was safe to use the word "rape" around him.

How wrong I was.

"Yeah, but was it really rape? You weren't roofied,"He retorted, adding in that there was nothing monstrous about my assailant, just a large sense of naivete. Naturally, I found this to be insulting. There is no such thing as "real" rape. A back-ally ambush is just as non-consensual as screwing someone who is dead drunk and isn't in any place to respond. I was floored by the logic he gave me- it was typical rape apologist bullshit about how how a yes should be "assumed" in these cases, and that women are fair game if they choose to ingest any kind of inhibitory substances. I didn't fight my assailant.  I must have been perfectly okay with it.

When someone is so caught up in this ridiculous kind of logic, "yes means yes" means nothing. Emotional appeals about the trauma you've had to fight through, the therapy that may or may not have worked, the times your assailant used dangerous rhetoric towards you, the flashbacks and triggers when trying to carry on with your sexual life, the irrational (or, as I'd argue, perfectly rational) fear of strange men that has come from it- none of that matters. The assailant didn't have the so-called personality of a rapist, so he simply couldn't have done something like that.

I think it's safe to say I'll never be going to a bar with this clown again.

That awkward moment when people think they're conversing with the dead.

I decided to test my method of separating fact from fiction today and took part in a little bit of participant observation with my Anthropology professor, Justin, and a few students from his Religion class. Two groups of about five or six students each where each given an Ouiji Board. For anyone who has never heard of these before, it's a small playing board with the ABC's, the numbers 0-9, and a "yes" or "no" spot printed on top of it. The users all place their fingers on a sliding tool, and ask "spirits" some questions. The "spirits" supposedly guide the user's fingers to the answers of their inquiries.

To put it simply, it's bullshit. With a little bit of crowd psychology, suspension of disbelief, and some pushy fingers, you too can communicate with the spiritual world!

My one rule for this experience was to do no harm. If a participant thought they came into contact with a spirit that they knew personally, I got the hell out of there. I had an easy enough time manipulating the other players as it was, and didn't need to give anyone a scare. The first round of play was almost too easy to manipulate. I pushed the dial back and forth through alternating "yes" or "no's" to each question, regardless as to whether or not the answers were consistent with previous answers, and after doing this about ten times, the other players fell into the habit on their own, and I didn't even have to be touching it.  I spelled out the name "Holly," which everyone fell for (I mean really, though, Holly?!) and even made a red-haired kid think that she hated gingers and got him kicked out of the round. When I took off my hand to take some notes, "Holly" stopped talking to them, and wouldn't start till I came back. Wonder why.

In another round, when a "spirit" was asked their name, I pushed the dial to random letters; complete gibberish. One young woman immediately decided this was a dead friend of hers, because this was apparently "his exact sense of humor." Things got really weird and personal and I stepped back.

Out of the entire room, nobody else was skeptical of the boards. It was an overall disappointing experience, considering how easy it was to convince a bunch of intelligent students that they were communicating with the dead. Here's another fun fact: rumor has it that the board has a magical power that prevents it from being burned. If you find a fireproof board, James Randi will give you $1,000,000! So far, this hasn't happened.

Who knows? Maybe next time I'll volunteer to do a Cold Reading with the class.

Who thought this was a good idea?

Ah, the naivete. Something about making domestic abuse a cutesy Saturday morning activity leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth. UMD's branch of Alpha Chi Omega is accurately representing all that is wrong with the world right now. Hosting a "Dodge Domestic Violence Dodgeball Tournament" is not only in poor taste, but is taking away from how serious this issue is.

This is what democracy looks like.

Check it out- UMW's branch of Virginia Organzing was featured in the Fredericksburg Patch! Last Wednesday about 50 of us came out to protest Karl Rove's talk at Mary Washington. The police shuttered us off to a "limited free speech zone," but we were loud enough to be heard at every entrance to the forum.

No excuse for police brutality

So at UMW, we have a handy little piece of software that we use called "Canvas." We take quizzes on it, submit essays on it, and much like Facebook, can add a little bit of our own commentary to our classes. Every class I am in has its own page where you can post as often as you'd like, and if your professor is okay with this, on whatever you'd like, so long as it is relevant to the class. Last week, I took it upon myself to post the famous pepper spray video from the Occupy Wall Street movement. Much to my surprise, instead of an outcry towards what was featured in the video, the following comment showed up under my post:

"It's been featured in the NY Times for several days. The police are under extreme pressure with terrorist threats and the possibility of riots like London and before that, Paris. These men and women (in uniform) have been undergoing training for terror threats and with the heightened security fears in our society, their force is understandable. These peaceful protestors also did not have permits to march and are breaking the law. After what NY has been through in the last 10 years, I feel that their actions are understandable in a larger context"

I politely responded to her, pointing out that I wanted people to view the video for themselves without considering the political agenda of the protests. After all, shouldn't freedom of speech be protected regardless of how you feel about the issue?

"When you post things like "the mass media has kept under wraps" and "major examples of police brutality" one can't help but feel an agenda being pushed. I think it's important to understand both sides instead of creating a victim vs. predator idea."

Let me tell you that my eyes rolled so far into back of my head, I did a damn back-flip. This is the kind of attitude that has rendered us fucked in the long run. Thoughtless acceptance of violence and brutality by the hands of the state is so dangerous, so ignorant, I didn't even know how to reply. I'll break it down here:

1. First off, at the time of my posting, the event was barely a week old. Upon visiting top news sources such as MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN, I wasn't able to find coverage on a single channel's front page. Plenty of Bieber gossip and Reality TV coverage, but nothing at all about OWS. The New York Times' coverage was undoubtedly biased, casting a negative light upon the protesters and failing to mention their plight at the hands of the NYPD.

2. I believe it goes without mentioning that her harping over "terrorist threats" has much to do with people's diminished sensibilities in the post 9/11 era. I can't say that I'm surprised. It disgusts me, but I'm not exactly falling out of my chair.

3. I will never understand how people can be spoon-fed cold, hard, evidence, and still deny what is happening in front of their eyes. I posted a video of women being corralled and sprayed for no justifiable reason, and this woman tried to justify it.

I was (and still am) infuriated by the replies I received. The NYPD are predators. People are being victimized. I'd like to think that you cannot ignore the evidence or the revolution that is happening right in front of your eyes, but that seems to be the case. Until it shows up on your doorstep, I suppose it's pretty easy to ignore.

The High Priest of his home

I hung out with someone I'd rather I didn't tonight. Being polite is great, but chivalry really gets under my skin. Opening a few doors is nice, but excessive assistance creeps me out considering the fact that I still have all of my limbs. We started talking about our parents rules when we were in high school, comparing and contrasting how different genders are raised.

“I was never allowed to have boys in my room. Ever. If they were male, they was staying on the couch downstairs,” I informed him, considering this a norm for many teenage girls.

“Oh, my room was on the other side of the house, and what me and my girlfriends did in there was my business,” he replied, stating a parenting standard I usually heard for men.

I reminded him that boys and girls have very different rules when it comes to parental units and the dating world. The girl will always have a tighter leash with few exceptions.

“Well, yeah,” he said, “If I ever have a daughter, and she has a boy over, I’ll set his ass straight. If he even makes a move on her, his dick will be ripped off in a matter of seconds.”

For whatever reason, this did not sit well with me. At all. Yes, I’d heard that statement made many times before, even by my own father, but it just hit me in that moment that this attitude was not okay.

Why can the girl not be the one to “make a move?” Is it because they are supposed to remain pure, tight, chaste, until their wedding night? Do parents really find it effective to remain blind to the fact that it isn’t always the boy who gets to make the move? Of course not. Girls are not supposed to feel any signs of sexuality. Exchanges and embraces and fluids are supposed to be disgusting and limited to a man’s world. Since we are girls, we may not enjoy sex, we may not have it at all, and if we do, we must lay there and take it. We must not enjoy it.

The idea of the father attacking a boyfriend for having sexual relations with his daughter disturbs me as well. I think it is pretty fucked up, in all honesty, that fathers guard their daughter’s sexuality. It is, in many ways, perverted. I picture the image of the daddy who slips the purity ring onto his virginal daughter’s finger and reads a purity pledge out loud, promising to guard her from the big bad world. The following is an actual pledge read out loud at purity balls, up-and-coming trends in the world of abstinence where fathers and daughters attend a dance and make a “sacred” promise to one another.

I (Daughter’s Name)’s Father, choose before to God to war for my daughter’s purity. I acknowledge myself as the authority and protector of my daughter’s virginity, and pledge to be a man of integrity as I lead, guide, and pray over my daughter and her virginity – as the High Priest of my home.

Sure, most fathers do not go as far as to make such promises to their daughters, but the jokes that dads make about killing the boy who has sex with his daughter is all in the same vein. It’s such an obvious double standard. 

If his son gets fucked, he gets a pat on the back. When little Susie does the fucking, she gets grounded and chastised.