One of the comments I didn't put in my post on the Sexual Assault Awareness Survey (down a few posts) was this:
"When are men going to stand up for us?"
Luckily, there are some men out there who get it and want to make a difference. My guy friend Josh is requesting our help to do just that here. Guys don't get subtly. Sometimes they need to be smacked upside the head. And we are just the people to do it. Dr. Nik is another one. He often comments here at Big Girl Underoos.
Unfortunately, what we need to teach them is very hard to tell. Speaking the words is often impossible. And we feel foolish or overreactive or downright silly to do so. But we aren't. And the silence is crippling. To us. To our partners. To society.
I went to a presentation last night by an artist, Marta Sanchez, whose work is inspired by her expriences with abuse and assault. Even though she says she rarely speaks about it, her pieces do. The audience at the presentation was interesting. I don't think the organizers got the word out soon enough so there was a scrambling to get participants. I went because a friend of mine told me about it and I felt the guilt of not going given that I'd just been blogging my heart out about the subject. Anyway, the majority of the audience was the college's football team. I'm sure they were strongly encouraged to attend but it was nice to see them there. (That's the kind of thing Duke's administration should encourage.)
I think they got a little scared when they discovered the presentation was going to be interactive. Hell, I did too. We all had to pick a print from the artist's Angel series that spoke to us and then when it came up in the powerpoint presentation we had to explain why, and what we saw in the piece. It was interesting hearing their descriptions because they see things through their lens of (mostly white) American male jock. Many of them described the images with words like innocent, peaceful, pure. I felt them wanting to protect the angels.
What I liked about the presentation was that it may have helped them see things through their lenses differently. It helped me. You see, the whole point of the series is that we often assume that only women who did something wrong can be assaulted and raped. They were wearing the wrong clothes, were in the wrong place. Or that "bad" women (strippers, hookers, women "with a past") can't be raped because, well, the cats already out of the bag. But it can happen to anyone. The questions, 'A whore can't be raped? Can an Angel?" appears over this image. An angel is perfection. No one can be a perfect angel. And it's
ridiculous to think so. And even if they are, do they deserve to be believed any more than someone considered less than angelic? Bill Napoli thinks so. This image flaunts the assumptions.
The victim is victimized twice by those assumptions that she somehow did something wrong. But what's so special about 2 in the morning that makes it ok for you to assault me? "She shouldn't have been there." No! His fists should have stayed in his pockets. His cock should have stayed in his pants. This is not about HER. It's about HIM. HE shouldn't have been there. I wish more people would get that. Here's a poem that's part of the Vagina Monologues that finally helped me get it.
"When are men going to stand up for us?"
Luckily, there are some men out there who get it and want to make a difference. My guy friend Josh is requesting our help to do just that here. Guys don't get subtly. Sometimes they need to be smacked upside the head. And we are just the people to do it. Dr. Nik is another one. He often comments here at Big Girl Underoos.
Unfortunately, what we need to teach them is very hard to tell. Speaking the words is often impossible. And we feel foolish or overreactive or downright silly to do so. But we aren't. And the silence is crippling. To us. To our partners. To society.
I went to a presentation last night by an artist, Marta Sanchez, whose work is inspired by her expriences with abuse and assault. Even though she says she rarely speaks about it, her pieces do. The audience at the presentation was interesting. I don't think the organizers got the word out soon enough so there was a scrambling to get participants. I went because a friend of mine told me about it and I felt the guilt of not going given that I'd just been blogging my heart out about the subject. Anyway, the majority of the audience was the college's football team. I'm sure they were strongly encouraged to attend but it was nice to see them there. (That's the kind of thing Duke's administration should encourage.)
I think they got a little scared when they discovered the presentation was going to be interactive. Hell, I did too. We all had to pick a print from the artist's Angel series that spoke to us and then when it came up in the powerpoint presentation we had to explain why, and what we saw in the piece. It was interesting hearing their descriptions because they see things through their lens of (mostly white) American male jock. Many of them described the images with words like innocent, peaceful, pure. I felt them wanting to protect the angels.
What I liked about the presentation was that it may have helped them see things through their lenses differently. It helped me. You see, the whole point of the series is that we often assume that only women who did something wrong can be assaulted and raped. They were wearing the wrong clothes, were in the wrong place. Or that "bad" women (strippers, hookers, women "with a past") can't be raped because, well, the cats already out of the bag. But it can happen to anyone. The questions, 'A whore can't be raped? Can an Angel?" appears over this image. An angel is perfection. No one can be a perfect angel. And it's
ridiculous to think so. And even if they are, do they deserve to be believed any more than someone considered less than angelic? Bill Napoli thinks so. This image flaunts the assumptions.The victim is victimized twice by those assumptions that she somehow did something wrong. But what's so special about 2 in the morning that makes it ok for you to assault me? "She shouldn't have been there." No! His fists should have stayed in his pockets. His cock should have stayed in his pants. This is not about HER. It's about HIM. HE shouldn't have been there. I wish more people would get that. Here's a poem that's part of the Vagina Monologues that finally helped me get it.
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