“Working on (Our) Shit”
TRIGGER WARNING
This collection of resources and writing deals with the subject of sexual assault, which may have intense connotations or bring up difficult feelings and memories. Please consider reading this when you are in a safe space or have some one available to talk to about the material if necessary.
The Philly’s Pissed “Vocab List”
• Sexual Assault is a boundary violation involving someone’s body, their space, the way they are being talked to. Sexual assault can be a range of things including rape, which to us is a more specific term.
-In general, we use the word rape to refer to a penetrative sexual assault.
-Consent is an agreement that people must make if they want to have a sexual contract. The issue of consent can be a complicated and ambiguous area that needs to be addressed with clear, open, and honest communication. All partners need to be fully conscious and aware; all partners are equally free to act; all partners clearly communicate their willingness and permission; all partners are positive and sincere in their desires. (The definition for consent was actually longer, I’ve taken the first sentence from each of the lengthier qualifiers.)
• We use the word survivor, instead of “victim,” because “victim” defines someone by what someone else has done to them. “Survivor” defines a person more by how they have responded to an experience, how they survived or coped. Sexual assault is a profoundly disempowering experience. We use “survivor” because of the idea of actively attempting to restore power.
• We use the term perpetrator because defining someone as an assaulter holds assumptions about what patterns of behavior will characterize their future, and our work at Philly Stands Up is based on that person changing.
• We don’t use the word accusation because we always believe the survivor. An assault situation is always surrounded by rumor and doubt-in the justice system, among friends, everywhere. Part of our work, by building up institutions and groups like these, is to eventually create a cultural shift, but more immediately, to create in our groups one absolute space were there will be no question. This foundation of our work comes from both working very closely with survivors and from there being people in both our groups who identify as survivors.
• The concept of accountability is something that is often used in reference to individuals, specifically perpetrators. It refers to the behavior of someone who is responsible to a survivor for what they did. To be accountable is to do what the survivor needs to feel as okay as possible. In the bigger picture, accountability can apply to communities, groups of people, in terms of making sure that communities are responsible to survivors as well.
• Restorative justice deals with everybody’s needs in a situation, because when a person hurts another person-whether it’s sexual assault, theft, whatever-there are communities around that survivor that feel hurt and like they’ve been betrayed. Restorative justice tries to take the needs of anyone who has felt hurt into account. It’s a more holistic approach.
• Survivor autonomy is a way of describing one of our foundational concepts, which is that in working on a situation, though we might give information about different options, the survivor is always the person who decides what’s going to happen, which is a way of restoring their power.
• Working on your shit is a phrase you’ll encounter when working with perpetrators. It refers to the process of examining the behavioral patterns that led up to an assault, figuring out how to change, and being accountable to the people you’ve hurt.
“4. Political Purpose – using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s ideas of the kind of society that they should strive after.” -George Orwell, Why I Write
Introduction: Drawing Connections between Popular Media and a Growing Movement within the National Punk Scene
In the spring of 2006, I was at the
National Conference on Organized Resistance in Washington, DC at American University. I was talking to an old friend (an anarchist) who alerted me to the existence of two intriguing sister-organizations known as Philly’s Pissed and Philly Stands Up, which were formed to combat the prevalence of sexual assault and the perpetuation of gender hierarchies within queer, activist and punk communities in Philadelphia. I was intrigued, but I wasn’t sure what to think. There were no resources available at the time in the web-space to learn more about it.
During the following summer, I watched a movie I nabbed from the ninety-nine cent bin at my local video store called
“Girl’s Town” (1996), which dealt with the issue of sexual assault in the urban ghetto. I very easily drew connections between the way that the vigilante justices in the film dealt with sexual abuse in their community and the way that Philly’s Pissed was doing it in theirs, at least from the brief description that my friend gave. The description was similar to one that I found on the Philly’s Pissed website later in a section labeled “skill-share”, where I found this reportage regarding the events following 3 rapes at a hardcore music festival, called
Pointless Fest:
The perpetrator was positively identified as having raped two women, and deliberations took place as to how the group could best support the survivors, without letting the perpetrator leave (as he was from out of state) before the victim’s wishes could be carried out. One victim decided to press charges against her rapist. A third woman approached the group had been raped by the traveling partner of the first perpetrator. A confrontation was planned for the evening. One woman opted to have the group of women assembled to beat the shit out of Perp. #1 after he denied wrongdoing. The women called him out and then took his identification so that they could alert his [local punk/activist] community that he was a rapist. Between punches, while he was being verbally confronted for the second time, after he was asked to admit to how many women he had raped, the police showed up and arrested him. He was held in Philly’s male unit, CFCU on $1 million bail, while the 3 women raped underwent rape kits at Temple University. The second woman who was raped by the same man provided a personal testimony to the police, but decided not to formally press charges.
On the website this early incident in the organization’s history is lengthily recounted and in depth, and the wishes of all three women in regards to the two perpetrators of boundary violations are revealed, as well as the action that was taken by the group in accordance with the wishes of the survivors. The writer of the account admits how, immediately after a number of women became aware that a rape had occurred, the women wanted to seek out the perpetrator and physically harm him without the consent of the survivor. Afraid of attacking an innocent, they waited to meet early the next day, afraid as well that the perpetrator might strike again.
What a bewildering response for this (then) ad-hoc group, I thought in my head. How refreshing. I felt bewildered because I had only considered real-life vigilante justice outside of super-hero comics within the context of white supremacy historically, and in the case of post-Katrina New Orleans in the United States. Specifically, I was thinking about the way the state turns a blind eye to self-deputization when the vigilante is carrying out the purposes of the state and punishes vigilante justice when it doesn’t serve the purposes of promoting or perpetuating hegemony. Philly’s Pissed was actively engaged in opposing hegemonic forces of the patriarchy with vigilantism and that felt refreshing to a certain degree, within the historical context of this country. The members of Philly’s Pissed eventually resorted to utilizing the punitive measures provided by the U.S. legal system, but not without putting the fear of g-d into this identified perpetrator first (and taking justice into their own hands in order to empower survivors, vigilante style.)
I later discovered there is an entire genre of filmmaking known as
“rape/revenge”, which originated in the 1970’s exploitation film craze to capitalize on the women’s movement and this impulse for retaliation against rapists. Films such as
“They Call Her One Eye” (a 1974 Swedish film, the first one ever banned by film censors in Sweden, and was later the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill”),
“Lipstick” (1976),
“I Spit on Your Grave” (1978), and
“Ms. 45” (1981) were all a product of this time, but the films fell out of popularity in the U.S. until the 1990’s. Then the genre experienced a revitalization with “Girl’s Town”,
“Thelma and Louise,” “Monster,” “Grindhouse,” and again in 2007 with the film
“Descent” starring Rosario Dawson.
Initially, I was shocked and disgusted at the existence of such a genre, which compelled me to investigate the reason for its surges in popularity and obscurity. I started watching rape/revenge flicks to try and get some clues about the attitudes of society towards women, women under attack, and how they are expected to respond and why. After I finished watching the ones I told myself I would watch, however, I was still left with many questions. If pornography and slasher-flicks that notoriously glorify sexualized violence against women, children, trans-folk, and farm-animals are allowed to exist within our society, why is violence in women in general, and specifically women fighting back against sexualized violence perpetrated by men on screen and in real life so stigmatized? The answer is simple: women perpetrating violence always sends shock waves through the dominant culture because men perpetrate 86% of violent crime. Dominance and violence, values of the patriarchy, are also components of the socialization process for men. Dominance and violence, along with being a breadwinner (in capitalist de-industrializing society and a post-second wave feminist landscape, also under threat), are the primary attributes of what is culturally understood to be the fabric of masculinity. The rape/revenge films of the 70’s and 80’s show with brutal clarity how damaging a culture of masculine violence is to men when women fight back. Deviation from the roles dictated by the patriarchy is a real threat to traditional masculinity and the men who subscribe to it.
Another reason that I was watching the films is because I was probably experiencing some guilt for being one of the only people I know who hasn’t survived sexual assault, and needed on some level to subject myself to the grisly footage to try to make sense of my emotions. Besides, I thought I could somehow learn from the films how to be a more supportive friend. This impulse, along with the links that I saw between the radical activist community and the films lead me to learn more about the multitude of grass-roots organizations that were springing up like Philly’s Pissed , doing the difficult work of dealing with sexual assault internally within their own communities. The community-based survivor support networks were budding within anarcho-activist milieus as a crucial component of anti-oppression activism and philosophy (praxis.)
Is the legal system so impotent that it cannot deal with sexual assault in a meaningfully healing and transformative way? The existence of the rape/revenge genre,
Rapex™ rape condoms , the “option” of
castration provided by the state to repeat sex offenders, and all of these grassroots organizations would suggest that the state is indeed that impotent when it comes to sexual violence, and is sometimes even complicit in upholding certain forms of brutality as a tool for maintaining differences in dominance. Ostensibly, the leftist radical support networks assume that the legal system is impotent in a variety of ways including the way that it deals with sexual assault, and that a community ignoring sexual assault is undermining other liberatory efforts. But that doesn’t make these radical left organizations sprouting from marginalized subcultures exempt from the problems of the rest of society (despite their efforts.) In the
“Safer Scene Policy,” a communiqué issued to the punk community from within it, the need for self-reflection (and wariness) is articulated with an emphasis placed on the need for consciousness and accountability within sub-cultural communities. Within small communities, Rebel Boy says, there is a very high risk of reproducing and reifying oppressive power dynamics, even when they are the very oppressive social constructs the sub-culture is critical of and trying to distance itself from in the context of dominant culture.
"We believe the punk scene is a microcosm within society. Suffering all the ills that society in general permeates. We suffer from white supremacy, patriarchy, heterosexism, homophobia, able-bodyism, fat-phobia, trans phobia, and a host of other oppressive ideas that keep us apart."
Essentially what the “Safer Scene Policy” is trying to communicate is that subcultures are not immune to oppression, and it necessarily follows that in order to achieve collective liberation every single participant must continuously and actively work hard on “their shit.”
In this paper I will struggle with (and hopefully answer a few) difficult questions such as: can a subculture affect change in the dominant culture? Does the revenge impulse undermine efforts towards liberation? Can violence used strategically or as a result of revenge reflex constitute a form of agency in a climate of violence? Is it possible to avoid reproducing the very political and physical violence inflicted upon our bodies and our psyches by the state in our personal lives and our communities? If not, then what are some possible routes for avoiding, reducing, or limiting this cycle of violence reproduction?
Research Methodology in brief
In order to understand the radical groups that were mentioned to me by friends within my punk/activist milieu, I read many zines, interviewed a friend, and researched the organizations that seemed relevant based on the knowledge that I had gleaned. Furthermore, I watched more rape/revenge films than were healthy for me, and read some feminist and critical theorists. I had originally intended to interview several other acquaintances who were at some point involved in educating people about consent or involved ad-hoc groups dealing with sexual assault within their communities, as well as a friend who was briefly volunteering with Philly Stands Up, but unfortunately time restraints prevented me from doing so. Please see my appendix and bibliography for more resources at the end of this paper.
Feminist Flickerings
Upon further inquiry, I realized that the grass-roots efforts of left-wing radical organizers and the rape/revenge film genre both make total sense if one chronicles the ebbs and flows of the feminist movement, dominant society’s backlash and feminism’s reincarnations in various waves. In the 1970’s, second wave feminism was at its peak, and the film industry’s production of films geared at the newly awakened feminist audience correlated. With the 1990’s came the advent of third wave feminism, and in the ten years in between, a micro-culture of extreme political conservatives and Christian evangelists known together as the New Right managed to reign supreme through their influence in the (incumbent) Republican Party. This conservative coalition prompted a severe backlash against feminism, even more severe then their Victorian Era backlash predecessors.
The point of making mention of the 1980’s anti-feminist backlash is that women’s hard earned legal protections such as the
Equal Pay Act of 1963,
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
Women’s Educational Equity Act,
Affirmative Action,
Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978,
Equal Credit Opportunity Act,
“No fault” Divorce,
Griswald v. Connecticut,
Roe v. Wade, etc. were eroded during a time of increasing hostility to women in general (especially Roe v. Wade.) The U.S. has experienced feminism and its benefits and boons for many women as well as its detriments to those who benefit from the patriarchy. While the influence of the women’s movement is in some ways still very obvious, in other ways women are being treated worse by the state and the way that it manifests its power in overarching doctrine, education, medicalization, social services, economy, political climate, etc. than before second wave feminism.
Amongst other things, society’s need for constant negotiation between these two seemingly paradoxical doctrines of feminism and anti-feminism has lead to dominant society’s minimal resistance to the perpetuation of rape culture. Pedophilia is being played up, to be sure, but most people don’t know that over 40% of college age women have been sexually assaulted (at least, because it’s the most under-reported crime) and 85% of these women have been assaulted by someone they know. Nor do most people know that there are resources available to people who have been sexually assaulted, provided both by the state and otherwise. I suspect that general availability of the statistics on sexual assault, (although one ought to be somewhat suspicious of statistics and who is generating them) might be helpful because if there was solidarity amongst survivors, then maybe more people would have support to work through their traumatic experiences. If people were open about their experiences, it could lead to a societal transformation of the attitudes we hold towards survivors, because we all know at least one, and the stigma of being a survivor would evaporate. The myths surrounding perpetrators of boundary violations (they aren’t strangers hiding in the bushes, largely, but people that you and I know) would likewise dissolve, and then people could even be held accountable for their bad behavior. In the midst of all this transformation, we might simultaneously expect an acknowledgement in society of the survivor-perpetrator spectrum (de-dichotomizing), which might cause a paradigm shift as well as more public and intimate discussions of consent. But here we run into a problem again, because how can we hold people accountable?
Coercive Forces
Radical feminists of the second wave, such as Catherine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin have made the point that as long as we live in a rape culture in which our bodies and our sex acts are regulated by the state, it follows that offenses made against our bodies as well as nonconsensual sex acts and pornography consumption that promotes non-consensuality and subjugation need to be regulated by the state. The call for civil rights and sexual crime legislation seems to be a decent, logical reform resolution, and it is a route that the feminists of the first and second wave opted for. The jurisprudence approach, while certainly not to be discounted or downplayed because it has created an enormously improved space for women in the U.S., is problematic in at least three ways if one digs a little bit deeper.
One problem with further legislating sexuality is that the state keeps distancing itself from and reneging decisions it has made in favor of the interests of women during periods of backlash, which is really a return to the status quo, the state being an inherently patriarchal force. Another issue is that the laws protecting women from discrimination and abuse that haven’t been revoked have often been poorly thought out at best or dangerously or misogynistically mis/interpreted at worst. An additional difficulty is that the very foundation of our justice system is steeped in many of the negative “isms” that plague our society, specifically in this case racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and gender inequality. This plays out in the way that the legal system holds people accountable for their actions when they are caught in a criminal act as defined by the general trends within society on the foundation of several seemingly innocuous principles:
Retribution involves revenge for the harm which society has suffered due to the criminal act. Deterrence is aimed at discouraging and preventing future criminal activity. Rehabilitation is an attempt at reforming the wrongdoer so that he does not commit more crimes. And denunciation is an expression of society’s condemnation of the criminal act.
Deterrence, rehabilitation and denunciation are not inherently problematic principles in and of themselves, but when they are being executed on an institutional level there is always the risk––and usually the practice––of perpetuating structural inequalities of gender, race on the legislative level and the executive level. Angela Y. Davis theorizes
“If we are already persuaded that racism should not be allowed to define the planet’s future and if we can successfully argue that prisons are racist institutions, this may lead us to take seriously the prospect of declaring prisons obsolete” because it’s possible that we won’t be able to abolish racism and its root causes without abolishing prisons. I wonder if this is true of sexual crime too, because at this juncture sexual crime is (at times) being taken very seriously in U.S. courts and punitively dealt with. Often it is assumed of a white male prisoner that he is a sex offender. Thus the U.S. judicial system has as of yet successfully managed to circumvent any serious discourse regarding the root causes of sexual crime, punishing it on a case-by-case “personal” basis, rather than treating it as a political problem; this approach upholds the political problem. Retribution, contrary to the other principles expounded upon, on any level whether legal or extralegal within the framework of the critical analysis of violence reproduction and oppression is problematic because it doesn’t get at the root of the socio-political problem. It simply punishes personally rather than healing or examining the root causes of patriarchy.
Perhaps perversely, revenge has the potential to be a healing and transformative exercise for an individual who has been affected by violence and is suffering under the oppressive forces of a society or an individual who has made them to feel stripped of their autonomy and profoundly disempowered. The effect of revenge is that it can restore a sense of or the physical, material reality of autonomous status or empowerment for a time. As Fanon says of the oppressed and colonized in the process of decolonization in his classic work
Wretched of the Earth,
"What is the real nature of this violence? We have seen that it is the intuition of the colonized masses that their liberation must, and can only, be achieved by force. By what spiritual aberration do these [wo]men, without technique, starving and enfeebled, confronted with the military and economic might of the occupation, come to believe that violence alone will free them? How can they hope to triumph?
It is because violence (and this is the disgraceful thing) may constitute, in so far as it forms part of its system, the slogan of a political party. The leaders may call on the people to enter upon an armed struggle. This problematical question has to be thought over. "
It would seem that every resistance movement in the de-colonizing world must have a reactionary, violent element in order to at least partially succeed in its mission. Because within a violent system sometimes the only possible response, the only possible way to escape the forces of coercion that keep people oppressed, is a violent uprising that knocks the oppressor out of the position of power over the oppressed. In some cases the only way to gain material agency is by usurping the usurper, and utilizing other complementary, less violent means in corroboration and collaboration. However, another effect that revenge can have on a community or individual is an unending cycle of violence reproduction, already present and ingrained in our beings as a result of having been oppressed, marginalized, or colonized. Some refer to this as the slave mentality, which is not an easily overcome condition.
The principles governing the judicial system and the way that the law is executed becomes even more complicated and troublesome in the case of retribution when the prison system becomes privatized and is a huge income generating industry in a nation that is in the process of deindustrialization and outsourcing for cheap labor. Once the prison population is being exploited for absurdly cheap labor, malevolent forces begin to work. The same greedy forces that have justified the colonization of women’s bodies and queer bodies and bodies of color and are the undercurrent in U.S. society since its inception, such as racism, sexism, and homophobia, become the impetus for expanding the prison industrial complex. Ludicrous legislation is enacted for the dual purposes of perpetuating systems of dominance by maintaining criminalized otherness against a backdrop of elite white male supremacist capitalist hetero-normativity, while also creating a source of cheap labor with no tariffs by filling privatized prisons. To create an environment where the placement of enormous quantities of human beings in cages is justifiable, new laws are created, like the three strikes law, demonizing drug users and racializing what a drug user looks like. This sort of behavior has been part of a racist backlash against civil rights since the emancipation proclamation. Thus, the pure intentions of the jurisprudence approach have already been muddied before they have even been applied. So what can we do to rehabilitate our sick society without placing people in prisons?
Rad Responses
Sexual assault goes unreported an ungodly percentage of the time it is perpetrated in society at large, and it might behoove radical left of center activist communities and communities that suffer extreme police oppression (namely communities of color) to deal with most of their problems internally, including sexual assault. The logic goes something like this: why self-inflict further violence upon a household that is suffering violence within a community that is under constant attack by police by inviting them into one’s home? In the case of groups that are marginalized by society for their difference or “otherness” or have self-marginalized in protest of the general trends of society, there is an alternative to the prison industrial complex that might successfully be expanded to be used in society in general. Take, for example, the punk subculture.
First off, what is a subculture? According to the introduction of
The Subcultures Reader , a sociological text, subcultures are
groups of people that are in some way represented as non-normative and/or marginal through their particular interests and practices, through what they are, what they do, and where they do it. They may represent themselves in this way since subcultures are usually well aware of their differences, bemoaning them, relishing them, exploiting them, and so on. But they will also be represented like this by others, who in response can bring an entire apparatus of social classification and regulation to bear upon them.
Subcultures are certainly not immune to oppression, as Rebel Boy has told us, rather, they function as microcosms of society, wherein oppressive behaviors that have been internalized or privileged are often magnified or fetishized. That said, subcultures can and do affect change (even if it’s subtle) in dominant culture because both the dominant and sub culture are constantly redefining themselves in opposition to or in embrace of one another, and because the subculture reflects back the extremes of trends in dominant culture, often making dominant culture better aware of itself. Usually this looks like dominant society making false characterizations and accusations of an extreme version of itself, and this leading to inflamed, reactionary, dialogue within dominant culture about the subculture, eventually leading to a re-examination of itself.
It seems appropriate to give a little context about what I mean when I talk about the punk subculture, which has not always been a safe place for white straight male supremacy’s “others” when it comes to race, gender, or sexual orientation. Interestingly, punk is broken down into three waves just like feminism. Many of the first wave punk bands (and genres/movements that have since split from it or been absorbed by it) that are often associated with the 1970’s beginning of the punk subculture were female fronted or populated by female musicians, like
the Slits,
X-Ray Spex,
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and
Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees. However, the bands that gained popular notoriety and acclaim for the genre and then the developing sub/counterculture were often known for pornographic antics and deviant lifestyles. Vivienne Westwood, the British designer who clothed the Sex-Pistols, for example, put them in
high-fashion bondage wear.
The fashion and trends of early punk could largely be attributed to an exercise in the principles articulated by the Situationists, who were interested in spectacle. With the Sex Pistols in bondage wear, the world watched in horror as the look seemed to dictate a life-style that eventually escalated to the tragic story of abuse, excess, homicide and suicide of Nancy Spungen and Sid Vicious, immortalized in film. The fashion and trends of early punk warmly embraced down-and-outs as well as sexual deviance, whether in the form of cross-dressing, cathartic violence (
pogo-ing and
skanking and then
mosh pits), drug use, body modification, sex-work, or bondage, domination and sado-masochism, which conversely could be interpreted as liberating or damaging to the issues articulated by the women’s movement of the ‘70’s or the ensuing backlash to second wave feminism.
The beginning of the second wave of punk was parallel to the height of the backlash against ‘70’s style second wave feminism, and predictably enough, it was a scene that was mostly dominated by dudes, and by and large wasn’t a very friendly place for women. A great deal of punk of the 80’s, particularly in the cities of the U.S., became hyper-violent and macho with the advent of hardcore, straight-edge and hard-line, and the gangs that formed around the ideas articulated by many of the bands were primarily made up of suburban white male youth. Many of these boys-club relics of the second-wave are still elements within the punk community, such as F(uck/riends)S(hit/tand)U(p/nited), a hard-line gang from Boston known for their violence, and members still work security at shows, such as Pointless Fest. This is not to speak badly of the scene at the time or to falsely characterize it, as there were certainly other elements to punk in the second wave, it was just hardcore that was most prevalent at that time. Within this most prevalent ‘80’s sub-genre were also a great deal of the exceptions to the usual whiteness of punk.
Bad Brains, for example, was an all black hardcore band from D.C., and as a result of the participation/inclusion of other races in punk during the ‘80’s (finally!) there was a sub-sub-genre named “
afro-punk.” Additionally, straight-edge had a positive impact on the scene at large until it was taken to the hardline extreme, and sXe still has a positive impact on punk today.
Straight-edge gives society’s freaks (or youth who feel like them) a refuge or flag to fly by giving them a collective philosophy that is opposed to compromising health and well-being to fit in to a niche.
The Riot Grrrl movement of the ‘90’s that followed the sXe movement of the ‘80’s could be compared to the sXe movement in punk because it gave youth more than the mark of a subculture: it offered sub-cultural politic that went beyond the surface level spectacle. Third wave punk began parallel to the third wave feminist movement. Before the
Spice Girls started singing about “girl power”, and at about the same time that
Salt N’ Pepa were topping the charts with their raps of female empowerment, Riot Grrrl and Queercore subgenres were becoming a major element within the punk scene, although they certainly weren’t the only element.
The Riot Grrrl movement was lead by bands like
Bikini Kill and
Bratmobile, emerging from the North-Western U.S. and their front-women, most notably Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill, were vocal proponents of a return to the ideals of the feminism. But they wanted an inclusive, active and radical feminism on their own terms, and many were college educated (and Kathleen has said that she was heavily influenced by the writings of bell hooks) and wanted critical and gender theory to be accepted and acted upon within their own cultural (punk) sphere. Many of the lyrics of the songs played by the Riot Grrrl bands were in-your-face accounts of, and assaults on, the daily injustices of being a woman or queer in a patriarchal environment.
She is me
I am her
She is me
I am her siamese twin connected at the cunt
HeartBrainHeartBrainHeartBrainLungGut
I want to kill her
But it might kill me
"Feminist"
"Dyke", "Whore"
I'm so pretty
Alien
She wants me, she wants me to go to the mall
She wants me to put the pretty,
the pretty pretty pretty red lipstick on
She wants me to be like her
She wants me to be like her
I want to kill her
But I'm afraid it might kill me
"Feminist"
"Dyke", "Whore"
Pretty, pretty
Alien
And all I really wanted to know
Who was me and who is she
I guess I'll never know
They didn’t want the feminism of what they perceived to be the limited scope of their mothers. Rather they sought a feminism that was sympathetic to and conscious of the issues of queer folks and women within the contemporary landscape, and in light of the anti-feminist backlash.
You made the rules
You wrote the script out
Don't blame me when you fuckin’ lose
Don't put the blame on me
You try to make me crazy
You try to make me scared
You try to make me crazy
I think yr a fucking drag
You are yr own worst enemy
The Riot Grrrls became a very important part of punk and what punk has become today because they directed their critical gaze on the subculture they were a part of from within it, and their critiques even extended to their own participation within it. The punk fanzine -making culture that began in the 1970’s for bands like the Ramones and the Stooges took on more politically and socially conscious content when zines met Riot Grrrl, and also became much more prevalent and varied.
Queercore, of more ambiguous origins, began to make its presence known with more frequency and self-confidence within the punk scene around the same time as Riot Grrl, and the two subgenres intersected at many points. Bands like Team Dresch and Limp Wrist that were often musically coming from a more hardcore style of the 1980’s met Riot Grrl half-way with their politically charged content and their outspoken and unabashed coming victoriously out of the closet, with lyrics that directly confronted the issues of trans and homophobia within U.S. culture as well as their cultural milieu. The queercore band Limpwrist on popular neo-conservative radio psychologist
Dr. Laura Leshinger:
This song is called Limpwrist vs. Dr. Laura
Now we have a problem with you (uh-huh)
You’re not even a real doctor
You and your fake-psychiatry
Talking so much shit on us queers
Well let me tell you something Laura: WE ARE LIVING
If Limpwrist ever crosses your path
It’s OVER
That’s right girl!
Now for the good part: Synthesis
From these two movements within the third wave punk and feminist scene, it becomes easier to see where community-based responses to sexual assault evolved from, how they became possible and why they were important to their sub-cultural constituencies. Society in general has become increasingly less approving of our country’s justice system, as the prison industrial complex has expanded and people have had their eyes opened to its injustice (most acutely for people of color) as well as its inability to correct society’s ills. In order to try and understand where society has gone wrong many communities have begun thinking to themselves “violence must be understood within the social context of inequality.” Some small communities are not willing to negotiate their internal problems through the judicial system, or are willing to work in collaboration with the judicial system provided that members of their community are not adding to the booming population of the prison industrial complex. These communities have managed to prevent some of their members from meeting the penitentiary fate by developing new “restorative” justice models, such as those found in the book
Peacemaking Circles: From Crime to Community. These restorative justice models are an important stepping stone towards justice in most cases, however a valid critique of the usual model is that “What ends up too oft missing from the analysis or the praxis, however, is a consideration of the gendered violence that emerges in a male dominated society” in addition to a racial analysis.
The problem, however, with these models in addressing sexual/domestic is that they work only when the community unites in holding perpetrators accountable. However, in cases of sexual and domestic violence, the community often sides with the perpetrator rather than the victim. So for instance, in many Native communities, these models are often pushed on domestic violence survivors in order to pressure them to "reconcile" with their families and "restore" the community without sufficient concern for their personal safety. Thus, we face a dilemma: one the one hand, the incarceration approach for addressing sexual/domestic violence promotes the repression of communities of color without really providing safety for survivors. On the other hand, restorative justice models often promote community silence and denial around issues of sexual/violence without concern for the safety of survivors of gender violence under the rhetoric of community restoration.
Traditional restorative justice models are falling short in cases of sexual violence because survivors are not explicitly being supported or protected from those who have perpetrated boundary violations against them during the “peacemaking” process. Fortunately, there are survivor support groups like INCITE!, created specifically to provide support to people of color who are survivors of sexual violence. Some of INCITE!’s practical propositions for cultivating community accountability are
Developing community-based responses to violence is one critical option. Community accountability is a community-based strategy, rather than a police/prison-based strategy, to address violence within our communities. Community accountability is a process in which a community – a group of friends, a family, a church, a workplace, an apartment complex, a neighborhood, etc – work together to do the following things:
-Create and affirm VALUES & PRACTICES that resist abuse and oppression and encourage safety, support, and accountability
-Develop sustainable strategies to ADDRESS COMMUNITY MEMBERS’ ABUSIVE BEHAVIOR, creating a process for them to account for their actions and transform their behavior
-Commit to ongoing development of all members of the community, and the community itself, to TRANSFORM THE POLITICAL CONDITIONS that reinforce oppression and violence
-Provide SAFETY & SUPPORT to community members who are violently targeted that RESPECTS THEIR SELF-DETERMINATION
Despite the noble efforts of activists to constantly improve upon their methodology and praxis, no process is without defects, and the work is highly situational, and utterly dependent upon cooperation by all parties; this cooperation is not always easy to obtain on more than a superficial level. In order for the restorative process to work, the perpetrator must be willing to engage in an honest dialogue, accept accountability, and be willing to re-examine their behavior.
In an interview that I conducted with Augustine regarding hir work as a part of an ad-hoc group formed around a series of abuses between two partners in hir community of “boston/northeast anarchists”, zie expressed significant doubts about the effectiveness of the process used by hir group. The process that Augustine described to me was
"at first a bunch of us just gathered at someone's house to talk to g and figure out what he needed and remind him that yes, all that was really fucked up and we're not cool with it happening and we cared about him. once his needs were established, some of us met with d to let him know we knew what happened, that we weren't ok with it, and that he was being held responsible, that we were doing him a favour by giving him a chance to learn from his mistakes instead of kicking him out of anarchy, and that g was guaranteed safe spaces (if they were in the same room/place/event and g wasn't comfortable, he could ask d to leave and he'd have to respect that), and gave him some zines on abuse, consent, and trans issues to have read and processed by the next meeting. long story short, we planned to meet with him every so often and discuss what happened, why that was fucked up, and better ways to conduct things, with the eventual goal of d writing g a letter of apology and d being able to return to the anarchist community with us knowing he was no longer a huge asshole."
Sadly, Augustine felt that the group zie formed with other concerned parties was unable to effectively hold the perpetrator accountable within the context of the greater activist community, and that the process would not affect the behavior of the man “d” who was confronted (in the long term.) Additionally, zie perceived an inability on the part of the community-based survivor support group to provide adequate emotional assistance and security for the survivor during the process that the ad-hoc group employed, and didn’t feel as if the survivor felt empowered when the intervention ceased. When I asked Augustine if zie thought that the attempt to deal with the situation was effective, zie replied
"no, due to lots of stuff happening in the personal lives of people involved, and d eventually refusing to follow thru with the process because he felt it 'violated his consent.' but goshdarnit, we really really tried, and it even seemed like we were getting somewhere, but personally after d made it clear that he had no actual feelings about it and was just going thru the motions and telling us what he thought we wanted to hear, i pretty much gave up on him. not on preventing and calling out sexual assault, just d specifically."
The ambivalence that the perpetrator “d” exhibited during the process employed by Augustine and hir ad-hoc group is, alas, not an improbable response from perpetrators in the case of sexual assault, an additional challenge to taking a less-coercive course of action and opting for the community-based, survivor-supporting restorative justice route.
Despite the imperfections of the methods engaged by the groups who practice community-based responses to sexual assault, I am wholly supportive of their efforts. I’ve been learning that the coercion or revenge route (whether imposed by the state, or by an extralegal entity) is not an ideal approach for dealing with sexual assault. Since becoming interested in this topic, I think that my intellectual growth around it has mirrored the evolution of the group Philly’s Pissed: Philly’s Pissed began as a punitive ad-hoc group and has since become one of two sister organizations, alongside Philly Stands Up who relay the demands of survivors to “perps,” and try and rehabilitate them back into communities. Philly Stands Up was formed shortly after the formalization of Philly’s Pissed to deal with reintegrating “perps” into communities. Neither Philly’s Pissed nor Philly Stands Up utilize physically coercive means to achieve transformative ends. Their stance and mine is that we don’t need to contribute to the population of the prison industrial complex. Nonetheless, Philly’s Pissed, Philly Stands Up and I acknowledge that for some the jurisprudence approach is seemingly the most viable option for protecting people from sexual violence, and that at best the legislation generated will create an external behavioral blueprint that might get internalized. It is important to work in solidarity alongside the revolutionaries as the reformers.
Until the collapse of the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, the job of organizations like Philly’s Pissed and Philly Stands Up and their sisters is to establish the institutions in society that they want to participate in from the bottom up, making the violence and coercion reproducing institutions of the state irrelevant. As Philly’s Pissed instructs us, working through “our shit” as a society at large and within our own communities on a smaller scale in order to unlearn the internalized lessons of the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy is a necessity. Everyone within a community is affected negatively when people behave badly towards one another, and it is essential to remember our interdependence and the complex web(s) that make up the ever-present backdrop of our lives and populate our respective microcosms.
Appendix
(WORKING ON “OUR SHIT)
Relevant Song lyrics, manifestos, practical guides, and an interview transcript
Lyrics to Minor Threat’s “Straight-edge” written by Ian McKaye in 1980 and released on their self-titled album:
I'm a person just like you
But I've got better things to do
Than sit around and fuck my head
Hang out with the living dead
Snort white shit up my nose
Pass out at the shows
I don't even think about speed
That's something I just don't need
I've got the straight edge
I'm a person just like you
But I've got better things to do
Than sit around and smoke dope
'Cause I know I can cope
Laugh at the thought of eating ludes
Laugh at the thought of sniffing glue
Always gonna keep in touch
Never want to use a crutch
I've got the straight edge
HARDLINE MANIFESTO
The time has come for an ideology and for a movement that is both physically and morally strong enough to do battle against the forces of evil that are destroying the earth (and all life upon it). One that cannot be bought, nor led astray by temptation. A movement free of the vices that sedate the mind and weaken the body. An ideology that is pure and righteous, without contradictions or inconsistencies. One that judges all things by one standard and emphasizes personal responsibility and accountability above all else. An overall view on life that not only deals with the external, but also the internal -- realizing that a physical entity of oppression, such as the capitalist system (where all life is deemed an expendable resource), is merely an outward manifestation of the warped values held by the people who run the institutions that control our lives, influence our culture and destroy the earth.
It must also recognize the intrinsic flaw of single issue causes, where the concept of justice is always a selective one (with each special interest group fighting for the rights of those that fall under their personal concern, while neglecting, or in some cases, opposing those rights for others) -- moving beyond such failed approaches -- to a logical and all encompassing system of thought and program of action, which can and will succeed.
That ideology, that movement, is Hardline. A belief system, and a way of life that lives by one ethic -- that all innocent life is sacred, and must have the right to live out it's natural state of existence in peace, without interference, This single ethic ensures that all life, from a foetus, or a grown human (black, white, male or female), to an animal, or it's habitat, is guaranteed equal rights, with liberty
does interfere with such rights shall not be considered a "right" in itself, and therefore shall not be tolerated. Those who hurt or destroy life around them, or create a situation in which that life or the quality of it is threatened shall from then on no longer be considered innocent, and in turn will no long have rights.
Adherents to the hardline will abide by these principals in daily life. They shall live at one with the laws of nature, and not forsake them for the desire of pleasure -- from deviant sexual acts and/or abortion, to drug use of any kind (and all other cases where ones harms all life around them under the pretext that they are just harming themselves). And, in following with the belief that one shall not infringe on an innocent's life - no animal product shall be consumed (be it flesh, milk or egg). Along with this purity of everyday life, the true hardliner must strive to liberate the rest of the world from it's chains - saving life in some cases, and in others, dealing out justice to those guilty of destroying it.
Only with this dedication, and conviction -- living a life that is in harmony with our stated goals and beliefs, gaining strength from out purity of body and mind, while actively opposing those who are guilty destroying the world with their poisonous thoughts, deeds and pollution, can we be victorious in the struggle. (Elgin James, late-1980’s-early-1990’s)
RIOT GRRRL MANIFESTO
BECAUSE us girls crave records and books and fanzines that speak to US that WE feel included in and can understand in our own ways
BECAUSE we wanna make it easier for girls to see/hear each other's work so that we can share strategies and criticize-applaud each other.
BECAUSE we must take over the means of production in order to create our own moanings.
BECAUSE viewing our work as being connected to our girlfriends-politics-real lives is essential if we are gonna figure out how we are doing impacts, reflects, perpetuates, or DISRUPTS the status quo.
BECAUSE we recognize fantasies of Instant Macho Gun Revolution as impractical lies meant to keep us simply dreaming instead of becoming our dreams AND THUS seek to create revolution in our own lives every single day by envisioning and creating alternatives to the bullshit christian capitalist way of doing things.
BECAUSE we want and need to encourage and be encouraged in the face of all our own insecurities, in the face of beergutboyrock that tells us we can't play our instruments, in the face of "authorities" who say our bands/zines/etc are the worst in the US and BECAUSE we don't wanna assimilate to someone else's (boy) standards of what is or isn't.
BECAUSE we are unwilling to falter under claims that we are reactionary "reverse sexists" AND NOT THE TRUEPUNKROCKSOULCRUSADERS THAT WE KNOW we really are.
BECAUSE we know that life is much more than physical survival and are patently aware that the punk rock "you can do anything" idea is crucial to the coming angry grrrl rock revolution which seeks to save the psychic and cultural lives of girls and women everywhere, according to their own terms, not ours.
BECAUSE we are interested in creating non-heirarchical ways of being AND making music, friends, and scenes based on communication + understanding, instead of competition + good/bad categorizations.
BECAUSE doing/reading/seeing/hearing cool things that validate and challenge us can help us gain the strength and sense of community that we need in order to figure out how bullshit like racism, able-bodieism, ageism, speciesism, classism, thinism, sexism, anti-semitism and heterosexism figures in our own lives.
BECAUSE we see fostering and supporting girl scenes and girl artists of all kinds as integral to this process.
BECAUSE we hate capitalism in all its forms and see our main goal as sharing information and staying alive, instead of making profits of being cool according to traditional standards.
BECAUSE we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak. BECAUSE we are unwilling to let our real and valid anger be diffused and/or turned against us via the internalization of sexism as witnessed in girl/girl jealousism and self defeating girltype behaviors.
BECAUSE I believe with my wholeheartmindbody that girls constitute a revolutionary soul force that can, and will change the world for real. (Kathleen Hanna, 1991. “Bikini Kill Zine 2”)
“Resources for Organizing”: INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence
(from their website,
)
Community Accountability Working Document
Principles/Concerns/Strategies/Models
March 5, 2003
NOTE: These ideas have been generated from various communities involved with INCITE!'s Activist Institutes and workshops. INCITE! does not endorse particular strategies. We recognize that what works in one community may not work in another community, and that some of these strategies may not work in any community. The purpose of this document is to provide ideas and to spark the development of additional strategies that may help promote community accountability on the issue of violence against women of color. If you have additional ideas, principles, concerns, and/or strategies you would like to add to this working document, please contact us. We will continue to update this document as we get feedback.
1) Notify employer of offender's domestic or sexual violence conviction or offense
2) Pass flyers around community re: violence and connecting people to each other and resources.
3) Conduct community meetings with batterers' accountability sessions.
4) Work with core groups in religious institutions to hold perpetrator accountable
5) Throw stones at offender's house; clang pots all night at his place, other such activities to disrupt his/her life.
6) Violence prevention in schools
7) Self-defense classes, including classes that teach "collective self-defense." That is, not just how you as an individual can fight back; but how can you work with other people to fight back and hold perpetrators accountable.
8) Distribute a list of known rapists in community.
9) Develop community watch groups with do direct action on issues of violence, confronting various issues with contribute to violence.
10) Community needs assessment, participant action-oriented research with potluck sessions for stealth community building. These research projects could entail focus groups where women talk about their experiences of violence and how the system responds to them, as well as ask what community accountability strategies they think might work and provide safety for them.
11) Do education with family members of survivor to enhance support for her/him.
12) Identify what communities both the survivor and perpetrator belong to (geographic communities, career-oriented communities, religious communities, hobby-oriented communities, etc), to figure out where accountability strategies can be applied.
13) Hold period community dialogues on violence to brainstorm ideas and develop community buy-in on developing accountability strategies.
14) Family systems approach with community buy-in; harm reduction principles applied
15) Develop a community alarm "signal" that signifies immediate crisis.
16) Confront perpetrator with a group of people in a place where the perpetrator will be embarrassed (such as place of work, restaurant, etc). Principle of public shaming
17) Develop an alternative peer court system to adjudicate issues of violence
18) Boycott perpetrators' business or otherwise interfere with his/her financial situation.
19) Utilize male allies to intervene with male perpetrators
20) Ostracize perpetrator
21) Develop a perpetrator database
22) Use arts/media/cultural work to organize around violence
23) Use street theater to demonstrate to community members how they could intervene if they see acts of violence or harassment
24) Develop alternative guardianship system for children who are being abused that does not rely on the state.
25) Identify high profile community leaders to take on this issue and support accountability strategies.
26) Develop wallet cards re: your rights in terms of police and INS.
27) Buy video cameras for community members to record police interactions
28) Accountability session/target legislators to increase human services funding
29) Community-based organizations survey community members
30) Develop community dialogues/forums to discuss rudimentary causes of violence against women of color and linkages with state violence
31) Use human rights framework in addressing violence against women of color; push human rights framework on legislators
32) Distribute information (posters/brochures, bookmarks, etc) on group self-defense. That is, when most people think of intervening in a case of abuse or harassment, they think of intervening by themselves, and hence the only solution they can think of is to call the police. Instead, people need to think about how they can work with other folks in their community to intervene as a group. We thus need to disseminate ideas and suggestions for intervening for not just individual self-defense, but group self-defense.
33) Use video/films/multi-media approaches to educate community.
34) Not enough to just confront perpetrators; there must be follow-up.
35) Develop sanctuary system for survivors.
36) Use parenting classes as opportunities to integrate analysis re: violence.
37) Nonviolence communication workshops
38) All intervention programs should have anti-oppression analysis.
39) Develop patrol system in neighborhood to watch out for harassment and abuse, including child abuse.
40) Organize neighborhood watch groups to monitor not only strangers in the area, but what is going on in peoples' homes.
41) Organize tenants' groups to proactively monitor for domestic violence.
42) Develop alternative 911 and action squads that can intervene with both perpetrator and survivor.
43) Train teens on what to look out for in choosing partners and dates
44) Integrate anti-violence work throughout school curriculum
45) Develop programs that combine social services with political organizing so that healing and action are not separated
46) Review social service programs effectiveness
47) Review community accountability strategies for their effectiveness
48) Develop alternative hotline for crisis intervention
49) Develop women's centers for information and referrals
50) Create list of allies who can intervene in cases of violence
51) Creative comprehensive programs that address violence within a framework that address all community needs. In India, we learned from one organization, Masum, that the way they were able to develop community accountability strategies (such as singing outside a perpetrators house until he stopped his abuse) without community backlash is that this group simultaneously provided needed community services such as micro credit, health care, education, etc. This group after many years became seen as a needed community institution, and thus had the power to intervene in cases of gender violence, where there interventions might otherwise be resisted. Thus, one possible model based on this idea would be the Community Healing and Action Center. The major components of the center would include:
a. Intervention strategies such as hotline, referrals, response teams for perpetrators and survivors, sanctuary network; and group assessment of different tactics.
b. Education, such as violence prevention curriculum, or a separate school, teach collective self-defense, multi-media education, parenting classes - and all education would have an organizing component
c. Healing - Community - to include fun community building activities, provide essential community services, workshops on healing from historic and colonial trauma; conflict resolution, community garden, unlearning oppression, and community building.
d. Healing - Victim - all healing strategies to be done on a collective level and stress social change component; support groups; strategies for integrating family into healing process
e. Healing - Perpetrator - Collective healing with social change component; follow-through strategies to all confrontations
f. Organizing - Campaigns against oppressive structures; outreach committee; making working against state violence a central campaign, grassroots fundraising activities; network with other social justice movements; leadership development
The first steps to building this center would be
a. Gather support for idea
b. Identify at least three dedicated people to develop center
c. Research similar existing programs
d. Begin with one component and build from there
52) Develop campaign to integrate domestic/sexual violence curriculum in schools that comes fro anti-oppression analysis, and that build youth activism.
53) Transform educational processes so that they emphasize the collective rather than individual
54) Summer school programs for people of color that integrate anti-violence analysis
55) Develop lists of community services, such as where you can do your laundry, grocery stores, and other such services. But integrate in this list, resources for dealing with violence to normalize the issue and take the shame out of it.
56) Walk around carrying an axe to indicate you're prepared to defend yourself.
57) Go to social gatherings, such as parties, family meetings, etc., and talk to people about what they can do to keep their families and communities safe.
58) Develop roles of allies so that they just don't talk about how they feel bad about sexism and racism, but that they proactively organize to support women of color.
59) Hold popular culture accountable for the images of violence that it perpetuates.
60) To break down resistance to addressing gender violence, do political education that stresses how gender violence has served as a tool of racism and colonialism to destroy our communities. We cannot wait to address gender violence until after we address racism and genocide, because it has been through gender violence that racism and genocide has been successful. If we demonstrate that much gender violence is actually result of oppressive state policies, then we may be able to take some of the shame away from discussing these issues and encourage more people to see this issue as important to ensuring the survival of our communities. This approach may have the additional impact of making us rethink who we define as "allies" in building a movement against violence against women of color.
61) Hold someone accountable in a community by not ostracizing them, but by all the community members refusing to show affection to that person.
62) Develop a two-fold strategy of 1) we are watching you - monitoring abusive behavior and 2) we are watching out for you - protecting people who might be victimized by violence.
63) Develop a spiritual base to our work, where we build support and love in our communities, and are not just focused on confrontation.
64) Create youth culture where violence is uncool.
65) To ensure accountability within progressive movements around gender violence, begin to build power with other groups to diffuse power differentials and push for accountability.
66) Develop a campaign around an issue that ties state violence to interpersonal violence. One such campaign is the American Indian Boarding School Healing Project, which calls for the U.S. to be accountable for boarding school abuses against Native children. It also frames the sexual violence currently in Native communities as the result of human rights violation caused by U.S. state policies around boarding schools. This framework takes out the shame of talking about sexual violence, and demonstrates the importance of addressing sexual/domestic violence in developing effective anti-racism, anti-colonial campaigns.
67) Develop feminist health centers/community groups to provide immediate after care services to survivors of violence rather than just having to go to hospitals or the police.
68) Develop community-based programs to provide sexual/domestic violence education for college orientation weeks rather than rely on institutional support.
69) Circulate composite drawings of abusers in community.
70) Talk about issue publicly among friends, families, and community members.
Interview Transcript: From an interview conducted electronically with A. (Alias Augustine) on December 13, 2007
Me: A,
I'm trying to do a project for a tutorial about self-deputized, vigilante type-reactionary (in the best sense, not in the right-wing sense) groups that form to combat sexual assault cases within counter-cultural/activist communities. I.e. Philly's Pissed, B.A.B.E. language, that fucking amazing movie Girl Town with the kicking soundtrack (early Queen Latifah rapping from the slammer, hella Salt n' Pepper & much more!), etc. Your brother told me I should contact you about it cause you got the down low through involvement. Do you have any resources to share with me?
A: Well, in addition to what you mentioned, there's Philly stands up!, which works with Philly’s pissed except they deal with perpetrators instead of survivors. The only other thing I can think of off the top of my head is Hollaback Boston, which deals with street harassment (I’m not directly involved with them, but they're on the myspace and whatnot), and I know there's a pretty well known group somewhere with a specifically queer focus, but I’m blanking on the name...queers bash back or something? Most of my involvement has been an ad-hoc little group formed around a very specific local event, rather than something more general and permanent, but if you want to interview me or something, I’m down.
Me: Would you define yourself as being a member of an activist community?
A: yes; boston/northeast anarchists. what i specifically do within that community fluctuates depending on other things, but i'm generally active in the industrial workers of the world, vegan/animal rights/anti-hls things, and things relating to feminism and queer/trans issues.
Me: Is sexual assault a big problem within your community?
A: i wouldn't say it's the biggest, but it does happen; i suspect much of it goes unnoticed/unspoken and there's something of an ignorance is bliss vibe.
Me: Do you note the perpetuation of hierarchical systems (namely, patriarchy) within your community? What are the gender dynamics/ratios like? Does anyone ever get called out?
A: I'd say we're at a point where 'littler' things, like a dude dominating discussions at a meeting to the point that more oppressed folx don't feel comfortable talking, are quickly called out and addressed, but things that are more subtle or way more overt (say, someone's partner acting abusively) are harder to address, either cos it doesn't seem like our business, or that we're seeing politics when there's none there, or fear getting 'kicked out of anarchy.' i have noticed elements of tokenization at times, particularly in groups that are mostly older white guys who sometimes act as if the key to making things more diverse is pushing one of the token females to take on a more visible leadership role. i'll discuss the one big callout i'm aware of/experienced below
Me: May I ask what the nature of the specific local event was?
A: my partner (g) at the time and i were in an open relationship and he was dating this asshole (d), also an 'activist', who repeatedly sexually and emotionally abused him, to the point that he could barely function. Their relationship was rife with power imbalances and generally fucked up shit, especially in regards to sexism and transphobia. at one point the 3 of us and most of our friends were attending a now-defunct queer group, and d's presence there really disturbed g. eventually g talked to some other people about what happened, and we banded together to talk to d about how we felt about his actions and attempt to reach some compromise based on what g needed and for our general dislike of sexual assault happening in our community
Me: How did you become involved?
A: as his partner he confided in me a lot about what was happening, but this is something i would have done for anyone, because yeah, i don't want that shit in my community
Me: What was the purpose of the formation of the group?
A: to call d out on his fucked up ways and help him learn new better more radical ways to carry out relationships and unlearn sexism and transphobia. also to make sure g's needs were being met and that he felt safe and supported, for example he could ask d to leave any show or protest if he wasn't comfortable with d being there
Me: Do you feel as if the purpose was carried out effectively?
A: no, due to lots of stuff happening in the personal lives of people involved, and d eventually refusing to follow thru with the process because he felt it 'violated his consent.' but goshdarnit, we really really tried, and it even seemed like we were getting somewhere, but personally after d made it clear that he had no actual feelings about it and was just going thru the motions and telling us what he thought we wanted to hear, i pretty much gave up on him. not on preventing and calling out sexual assault, just d specifically.
Me: What was your group decision-making process?
A: we used consensus for most things, we made a point of sharing our thoughts and feelings with each other after we'd talked to d about things, and if there was any doubt about what to do next or what ought to happen, we'd contact g and get his input.
Me: Do you think that if another group were to form in a similar manner, around a different event & involving different perps/victims that goals might have been carried out differently?
A: it's honestly really hard to say...i can say i'd be comfortable being involved in a similar situation with someone else because i've had past experience, and i'd surely hope that this time the perp would be less of a complete raging dick and actually be able to learn from hir/her/his mistakes. i think the hardest part is that the plan of action really has to be centered around the survivor's needs, but that can be hard to do if the survivor doesn't know what those really are or think ze/s/he can't assert them cos of the past abuse and whatnot. all i really know at this point is there needs to be a better viable model for dealing with this stuff, cos it does happen, and it really fucks with people, and that's counterrevolutionary. for what it's worth, d has been completely kicked out of anarchy.
Me: Was there some sort of critical point at which it finally seemed
appropriate/necessary to move to action?
A; thruout their relationship it was clear that fucked up stuff was happening, but g was never open enough about it to the point that i could identify it as abuse, though i was frequently in the position of giving, that's awful, why are you dating a jerk?' pep talks. it wasn't until they broke up that he told me about how transphobic and emotionally abusive d was. but months later he was still pretty traumatized by it all; one night at the queer group we were part of g was clearly, physically not ok (visible tense, bad vibes, etc) and was doubting whether or not to mention it, i was all like 'dude, say something' so we gathered the few remaining people (d and others had left already) and g was all like 'd raped me because i'm trans!' and we were all like 'ok that's really fucked up we need to do something'
Me: What exactly was the process for dealing with said event was?
A: at first a bunch of us just gathered at someone's house to talk to g and figure out what he needed and remind him that yes, all that was really fucked up and we're not cool with it happening and we cared about him. once his needs were established, some of us met with d to let him know we knew what happened, that we weren't ok with it, and that he was being held responsible, that we were doing him a favour by giving him a chance to learn from his mistakes instead of kicking him out of anarchy, and that g was guaranteed safe spaces (if they were in the same room/place/event and g wasn't comfortable, he could ask d to leave and he'd have to respect that), and gave him some zines on abuse, consent, and trans issues to have read and processed by the next meeting. long story short, we planned to meet with him every so often and discuss what happened, why that was fucked up, and better ways to conduct things, with the eventual goal of d writing g a letter of apology and d being able to return to the (a) community with us knowing he was no longer a huge asshole
Me: Did G express discomfort suddenly, and it was dealt with on the spot?
Or was there more that occurred that lead to it?
A: for a while he confided in me about stuff, at one point even asked me to talk to d for him, a 'how to fuck trannies 101' type thing i guess, but that seemed innapropriate. after they broke up he talked to some friends about it, but was hesitant to say more to the wider community because he didn't necessarily want to come out as trans and had typical survivor 'no one will care/believe me' stuff. i guess he felt more safe about that after the queer group meetings, i don't know. but yeah, for me personally it was a build-up, but on a community level it was more sudden
Me: Was there physical/sexual/verbal abuse involved?
A: i don't think there was physical, maybe some verbal in terms of subtle put-downs and emotional manipulation, but lots of sexual and emotional abuse. basically d raped g in the cunt after g told him he didn't like that kind of sex, but cos d's a gay man (his reasoning; i frequently used the 'i like dick too and that's never been a problem' spiel when talking to him) he refused to do anything sexual that g actually liked/got off from or be affectionate at all - all the while denying that he wasn't physically attracted to g, dropping the l-bomb, and calling himself a trans ally. it got to the point where the only sex they could have was something that felt like rape, and cos g has mad issues he put up with it.
Me: Did you confront D, and in what way did you confront him? What was the context/circumstance exactly? What type of language did you use? How many people were involved?
A: we invited him over to someone's apartment and gathered in a room to talk. we were fairly gentle, trying not to anger him or anything, but made it clear that he was being accused of rape and that that didn't settle well with us. i think originally there were about 5-8 people, but due to their personal circumstances it dwindled down to 3. i guess the context was that we knew what he'd done, were pissed off about it, and were going to make sure he was held accountable, whether he liked it or not. as it became more obvious that the nice approach was not getting thru to him, we started wording things a bit harsher, which led to d trying to talk about his bad feelings about the process and win our sympathy, but we were smarter than that. the last meeting was an emotional yelling match in which we kicked him out of anarchy.
Me: How is it that D been "kicked out of anarchy"? Is this insurable?
A: he is not allowed at any political/activisty event where we are at, and if he shows up (which word has he did recently) he will be confronted and asked to leave. he's referred to as 'fuckface mcgee' among some of my friends, a sort of voldemort if you will. it helped that he was on trial with 4 prominent community members but escaped the sentence because he paid off the company they were protesting, which angered lots of folx even if they didn't know about the rape thing (which many didn't cos g sort of changed his mind afterwards, last i heard they're on pretty good terms and d is still fucking with him)...basically there's lots of anti-d sentiment for lots of reasons, and no one really wants him near them or their activism.
Me: Was that the initial intention? What was the desired response from D that made the action, in your mind at least, as a whole unsuccessful?
A: the initial intention was to create a safe space for g and help him heal, while helping d see the error of his ways, with the eventual goal of him writing g a sincere letter of apology once he knew why what he did was so fucked up. d is not an emotional person at all, and he's really good at spouting rhetoric, so even though he seemed to grasp ideas intellectually (i.e., that consent under coercion doesn't count) it was quite a struggle to get him to apply them to his own experiences. he'd often seem like he was making progress at meetings, then come back to the next one with a draft of the letter that was passive agressive, completely missing the point, and still placing responsibility on g. at the last meeting, wher the letter was still pretty awful but in which he'd finally actually owned up to commiting rape, he was like 'yeah i can't do this anymore...' and went on about how he felt like we were violating his consent and being angry. we called g to figure out what he wanted to do, but he was indecisive and vague. my feelings on the matter was that cos d fucked up he had no choice but to complete the process until g said he was done, so suck it up. however, one of the other group members (also one of g's exes/old friends and clearly very emotional about it) gave him some big rant about free association, that he could choose to end the process but if he did he'd be kicked out of anarchy cos we'd make it public that he had a chance to redeem himself but decided not to. in retrospect i think that was too nice. but yeah, it became clear that d is fucked up beyond repair. g, however, asked for a copy of the letter that we got and seemed satisfied with it, even defending d after his ex-codefendants went public about their experiences. it's fucked up and complicated.
Me: Would you equate the type of work that you were involved in during this event with any other radical groups work? E.i. would you characterize it as functioning within the framework that Philly's Pissed, Stands Up, or Hollaback Boston operates under?
A: i get the impression that those groups are much larger and thus have a wider support network/organisational structure to operate under. part of our problem was that we were so small and had trouble dividing up our time and strength to deal with both the survivor and the perp. before there was wider community involvement i was feeling lots of pressure to be a good supportive partner thru it all, and though i tried it was very taxing and felt like a much bigger thing than i alone could take on. g had actually contacted philly's pissed at one point, but they didn't really tell me anything i couldn't have figured out/was trying really hard to make happen. i don't know, on one level i'm really optimistic that grassroots personal community level responses to sexual assault are effective and can make a difference, but due to personal experience I’m a bit cynical.
Bibliography
(“WORKING ON *OUR* SHIT”)
Books:
Beauvoir, Simone De. The Second Sex. New York: Vintage, 1989.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge Classics). New York: Routledge, 2006.
Dworkin, Andrea. Intercourse. New York: Basic Books, 2006.
Faludi, Susan. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. New York: Three Rivers P, 2006.
Fanon, Frantz. Wretched of the earth. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. New York: Vintage, 1990.
Griffin, Gail B. Calling: essays on teaching in the mother tongue. Pasadena, Calif: Trilogy Books, 1992.
Hooks, Bell. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. 2nd ed. South End P, 2000.
Levy, Ariel. Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. New York: Free P, 2006.
MacKinnon, Catharine A. Feminism Unmodified Discourses on Life and Law. New York: Harvard UP, 1988.
MacKinnon, Catharine A. Only Words. New York: Harvard UP, 1996.
Pateman, Carole. The Sexual Contract. Stanford UP, 1988.
Starhawk. Webs of Power. New Catalyst Books, 2008.
Zines/Pamphlets:
Basil. On the road to healing: A booklet for men against sexism. Seattle: Planting Seeds Community Awareness Project.
Crabb, Cindy. Learning Good Consent. Philadelphia: Philly's Pissed/Philly Stands Up.
Crabb, Cindy. Support Zine. Olympia: Microcosm.
Hooks, Bell, Andrea Dworkin, John Stoltenberg, and Kooky. Men in the Feminist Struggle. Baltimore: Firestarter P.
Let's Talk about Consent Baby. Philadelphia: Philly's Pissed/Philly Stands Up.
Peak Collective Members. Sexual Assault in activist communities: people talk, people share, and we are not taking this anymore. Guelph, Ontario: The Peak, 2002. www.peak.uoguelph.ga
The RAPE, ABUSE, & INCEST NATIONAL NETWORK. A D.I.Y. Guide to Preventing Sexual Assault. 1-800-656-HOPE: The RAPE, ABUSE, & INCEST NATIONAL NETWORK.
Unowho, Yareak. Our Own Response: Creating Healthier Communities. Philadelphia: Philly's Pissed/Philly Stands Up.
Weinberg, Joe, and Michael Biernbaum. Men Unlearning Rape. Changing Men Magazine #22, 1991.
Written by boys, to boys, for our entire community. SAFER SCENE POLICY. Issue brief no. 01.08.07. Aug. 2006. REBEL BOY. 25 Nov. 2007 .
Xriotfagx. Towards a less fucked up world: sobriety and the anarchist struggle. Chapel Hill, NC: Self published.
Films:
Girls Town. Dir. Jim McKay. Perf. Lili Taylor. VHS. Boomer Pictures, 1996.
I Spit on Your Grave: Day of the Woman. Dir. Meir Zarchi. Perf. Camille Keaton. DVD. Cinemagic Pictures, 1978.
Lipstick. Dir. Lamont Johnson. Perf. Margaux Hemingway. DVD. De Laurentiis, 1976.
Ms. 45. Dir. Abel Ferrara. Perf. Zoë Lund. DVD. Navaron Films, 1981.
Thriller-A Cruel Picture: They Call Her One Eye. Dir. Bo Arne Vibenius. Perf. Christina Lindberg. DVD. BAV Film, 1974.
Tough Guise: Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity. Dir. Sut Jhally. Perf. Steve Austin. VHS. The Media Education Foundation, 1999.
Audio Recorded Material:
Hanna, Kathleen. "Alien She." Pussywhipped. By Bikini Kill. Cassette. 1993.
Hanna, Kathleen. "Statement of Vindication." Reject All American. By Bikini Kill. Cassette. 1996.
McKaye, Ian. "Straight Edge." Rec. 1980. Minor Threat. By Minor Threat. Cassette. 1981.
Sorrondeguy, Martin. "Limp Wrist vs. Dr. Laura." Limp Wrist. By Limp Wrist. 2001.
Z. Budapest, Starhawk, Avalanche. Ritual Hexing of a Mass Murderer. Karla Tonella for KPFA,
1980. 15 Dec. 2008 .
Interview:
Augustine. "Ad-hoc response to sexual assault." 2007. E-mail interview by author. December, 13.
Communiqué/Manifestos:
James, Elgin. Hardline Manifesto. Raw data. FSU, Boston. 1980's.
Hanna, Kathleen. Riot Grrrl Manifesto. Bikini Kill Zine. Olympia, 1991.
Written by boys, to boys, for our entire community. SAFER SCENE POLICY. Issue brief no. 01.08.07. Aug. 2006. REBEL BOY. 25 Nov. 2007 .
Websites:
CARA: promotes a broad agenda for liberation and social justice while prioritizing anti-rape work as the center of our organizing. We use community organizing, critical dialogue, and collective action as tools to build safe, peaceful, and sustainable communities.
Communities Against Rape & Abuse. 06 May 2009 .
Creative Interventions: Embracing the values of social justice and liberation, Creative Interventions is a space to re/envision solutions to family, intimate partner and other forms of interpersonal violence.
Creative-interventions.org. 06 May 2009 .
Taking The First Step: Suggestions To People Called Out For Abusive Behavior
"Deal With It." Web Site Design & Hosting: Fruition Design Collective. 06 May 2009 .
HollaBackBoston - So you can be hot AND safe. 06 May 2009 .
Incite: Women of Color Against Violence: INCITE! is a national activist organization of radical feminists of color advancing a movement to end violence against women of color and our communities through direct action, critical dialogue, and grassroots organizing.
...INCITE! ...Home. 06 May 2009 .
Philly’s Pissed & Philly Stands Up! Philly's Pissed believes in supporting survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence in a way that provides options and allows the survivor to make their own decisions. We think it is important for survivors to have choices that do not rely on cops, government or big nonprofits. Who can offer better support to survivors than people and communities close to them?
Philly's Pissed dot Net |. 06 May 2009 .
Support New York: A Direct Action Survivor Support Network
Support New York. 06 May 2009 .
UBUNTU! Women of Color and Survivor-led. This means that we emphasize people most affected by sexual violence as public representatives of the group (i.e., media, mobilizations, public meetings, events, etc.), and in the group’s internal structure and processes (membership/composition, roles, and decision-making). This is our way of reclaiming power. The name UBUNTU reflects a commitment to a traditional sub-Saharan African concept of the same name, which roughly translated means “I am because we are”.
UBUNTU! 06 May 2009 .
(lacking in footnotes, etc.)
