I represent the morbid side of the women’s movement. I deal with the shit, the real shit. Robin Morgan calls it “atrocity work.” And that’s pretty much what it is. I deal with what happens to women in the normal course of women’s lives all over this planet: the normal stuff that is abusive, society at large.
…The women’s movement is like other political movements in one important way. Every political movement is committed to the belief that there are certain kinds of pain that people should not have to endure. They are unnecessary. They are gratuitous. They are not part of the God-given order. They are not biologically inevitable. They are acts of human will. They are acts done by some human beings to other human beings.
…[The women's movement] is a movement against human suffering. There is no way to be a feminist and to forget that. If you are a feminist, and if you have forgotten that our purpose is to end the suffering of countless unnamed and invisible women from the crimes committed against them — and yes, we may also end the suffering of men who are committing the crimes, yes, we probably think we can — then your feminism is hollow and it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t count. This is a movement against suffering. So in between the lines when you hear people say that this is a movement for freedom, for justice, for equality — and all of that is entirely and deeply true — you must remember that we are trying to eliminate suffering too. Freedom, justice and equality have become slogan words, Madison Avenue words, so has revolution. Nobody tries to sell suffering: in America, suffering is barely acknowledged. Suffering does not fit into the advertising scheme of things as a goal for a happy American. So it is a good measure of your own commitment to understand that in the end, in the end, the positives that we are searching for have to be measured against the true condition of women that we know and that we understand. …
One of the things the women’s movement does is to make you feel pain. You feel your own pain, the pain of other women, the pain of sisters whose lives you can barely imagine. You have to have a lot of courage to accept that if you commit yourself, over the long term, not just for three months, not just for a year, not for two years, but for a lifetime, to feminism, to the women’s movement, that you are going to live with a lot of pain. …Be prepared for all the people who tell you that it’s your problem, it’s not a social problem, why are you so bitter, what’s wrong with you? …underneath that is always the presumption that the rape was delusional, the battery did not happen, the economic hardship is your own unfortunate personal failing. Hold onto the fact that that is not true: it has never been true.
…Many women rebel against feminism because many women think we are the ones insisting that their full human uniqueness cannot be expressed because they are women. We are the bringers of the terrible message. We found this out by being women in the world. We want to change it. This is not a condition imposed by a political movement. This is a condition imposed by male supremacy…Sometimes, though, the political movement against male supremacy is confused with male supremacy itself, as if we’re the ones who are telling you, “because you are women, you’re going to have to do this and this and this.” We’re reporters. We’re telling you that because you are women, you live in this world I’m describing, and that the only way to do anything about it is to take some political responsibility for its existence and to work collectively together, which never means the abandonment of your integrity as individuals. It also never means the abandonment of common sense or common decency. If it does there is something wrong with the way you are going about organizing against what it is that is upsetting you and making you angry and exploiting you and hurting you.
There is nothing that feminists want more than to become irrelevant. We want the end of the exploitation of women; but as long as there is rape — as long as there is rape — there is not going to be any peace or justice or equality or freedom. You are not going to become what you want to become or who you want to become. You are not going to live in the world you want to live in. And so you have to organize an agenda…My agenda is everything I can think of, everything I can think of doing, all the time: movement, movement, physical and intellectual and political confrontations with power. You have to write the picket signs, march, scream, yell, write the fucking letters. It’s your responsibility to yourselves and to other women.
There is one thing that is not practical, and it’s the thing I believe in most, and that is the importance of vision in the midst of what has to be done, never forgetting for one minute the world that you really want to live in and how you want to live in it and what it means to you and how much you care about it — what you want for yourselves and what you want for the people you love. Everywhere in this country now people are told to be complacent because change is impossible. Change is not impossible. It is not impossible. Many things have to be changed in the world. It is time to change the condition of women, finally and absolutely and for all time.
–Andrea Dworkin from a speech given April 8, 1983, at Hamilton College in New York, in Letters from a War Zone– Writings 1976-1989, by Andrea Dworkin
Thank you Heart for reprinting this particular speech by Andrea Dworkin. Here in the UK I increasingly hear the refrain ‘men don’t rape women,’ men are raped too; what about the men.’ All of which are designed as Andrea said to make women believe male sexual violence against women is not a social problem but simply lies told by some women who supposedly ‘hate’ men. The deniers and apologists are boundless which is whyas Andrea rightly said, telling the truth about women’s lives is a thankless task, but a necessary one if change is to happen.
Change is possible but the reality is it will take a very long time. This doesn’t mean change can’t happen because history has shown it does happen. I believe the immense hatred directed at women and especially feminists is because feminism is challenging male supremacy and that is why it is so frightening to many men and some women too I would add.
Thanks for publishing this, it so beautiful, moving and terrible. Whilst we have to live with the constant tortures and rapes of so many women, there can never be true peace.
I feel that there too many women whose pain is ignored, and their voices are not listen.
I try to do what I can, but I find, like many women, that the pain of my past and knowing the how much is done to women all the time, makes me very ill.
I feel that for feminism to go forward, we do not always have to be strong. Sometimes, our greatest strength is letting our feelings of grief out.
Andrea Dworkin helps me to remember to feel without fear.
Let’s be clear: If a womyn says she was raped, then she was raped. Period. Wymyn don’t lie about this. Why would they? The investigation and trial are a second rape. In my perfect world, there would be no rape, obviously. But in my second-best world, a womyn’s word is all the proof that would be needed: There would be no rape kit (lovely name, don’t you think?) No investigation, no trial. Only a sentencing, and there would only be one: summary execution. I don’t want my tax dollars supporting these animals that take what is most precious from us.
Change is always possible. Those of us who have caused change to happen all our lives know this to be true. Change occurs the fastest for those of us who have the least invested in the world as we know it. Some have a lot invested, some have nothing, and some are in between.
A lot of women out there somehow think they are not a part of this change, or don’t know how to go about making change happen.
We are in the battle of our lives against a relentless, evil, and cunning male supremacy. It’s been going strong for a very long time, and it thrives on conning and getting women to think that it doesn’t exist.
Most of the things even the most mainstream of feminists take for granted is literally and utterly completely invisible to many men out there. They neither see nor hear this. Nor do they ever want to see or hear. They will themselves to be deaf and dumb to the voices of women worldwide.
So for women’s collective voice to be heard, we do have to heed the analysis of Andrea Dworkin. It was the relentless truth teller feminists like her that were and are the greatest threat to the rule of the fathers. Those rulers are comfortable in their ill gotten gains, and they are going to throw everything they can at us to prevent women from awakening.
When you awake from the land of the lotus eaters, you really do see this. Women who awaken from the sleep induced by patriarchy are often so shocked, they are stunned!
Unlike Dworkin, I don’t feel overwhelmed by this task, or even discouraged by minor setbacks. In any movement to free women there will be setbacks and changes and detours. Tactics have to be continuously changed, the enemy will always come up with a new trick or two to cause young women to be confused.
Their woman hating propaganda machine is going on night and day. Most women don’t even hear what these men are saying about them, so they are lulled into a false sense of security.
I don’t think many women really know how very close we are to the end of democracy in this country. Believe me, they are waiting for the next big terrorist attack — as the excuse they need to tip the balance.
Women need to be alert to this, and to not feel that this is about insanity. Feminism and the desire to end all male supremacy, and its entitlements that men so love: rape, pornography, prostitution, sexual slavery, and unpaid factory workers (motherhood), to name just the obvious few, will not go down without a major counterattack. Women need to be strong and to know that their demands will be met with the greatest intransigent hatred the world has ever seen.
Together we are winning, and we’ll win more. The more we stand for what we want, the more conscious we become, the more this will be a reality, one woman at a time, one city at a time, one country at a time….
Thanks for posting this, Heart. I love Andrea and I love you.
Hello There
I write a blog about hippies and anti-media and my political rantings. I know the hippie movement has not always been a good place for women but anyway all that aside…
I wanted to read what you had to say and I do consider myself a feminist as well as a hippie!
What I wanted to say is that here in the UK I am appalled by how rape is swept aside as a minor crime these days.
I think that because there is so much porn available and so many women are encouraged to be overtly sexual from a very young age in our media culture that somehow it’s assumed that sexual innocence together with rape is almost a thing of the past.
The assumption in the UK media is that if you are a woman who is sexually experienced and is maybe out on the town with her friends, that rape doesn’t really exist.
I am not speaking from personal experience so I may be wrong but it’s what I see and hear in the media.
For instance in a slightly different scenario I wrote to complain about a programme here called “The Wright Stuff” (channel 5)a programme I normally watch. There was a panel of three men and one woman and they were discussing this ..they were saying that rape from a stranger with violence was a terrible crime but was rape from a boyfriend, husband or a date in maybe not so bad after all they may have slept with their “rapist” before and may not have been had any violence inflicted on them.
They had female callers who said yes it was rape and destroyed their marriage and families and Matthew Wright the presenter of the show put down and questioned the authenticity these callers on live TV , also the woman on the panel was criticised for being furious at this discussion and saying of course it’s still rape if you know the attacker.
There is so much to repress women on TV I hardly know where to start.
Love and peace
born2rant
Loved that post, Heart – paints a beautiful picture – reminds me of the old Gentle Spirit days and the reason I loved that mag.
Born2rant is absolutely right, rape is really an epidemic.
Women are very much in danger now, and I think a lot of younger women have no idea of the danger out there.
I still can’t believe than any woman in her right mind would go out at night in a big city wearing high heels, and not have an independent means of getting home in the evening should she need to leave an unsafe place.
An unsafe place is any location where men are getting drunk. You don’t want to be around these impaired potential rapists. I thought this in college when I had to navigate drunken frat boys — my solution was to carry a baseball bat home at night.
My freshman college room mate suffered date rape at one of these “frat parties” and never fully recovered from the experience. Women thought I was crazy to call boys rapists and a danger to the campus.
What can you do? Any show that men control — the British T.V. show you mentioned, with one woman on the panel, is a set up. Talk to any man in America about the old movie “Deliverance” and see what happens. Men are terrified of being raped by other men, and yet they think nothing of making fun of women, and doing this to women.
We need another solution. I suggest a male curfew at night. Just get them off the streets to start.
Hello
I’m sorry there were a few typos in my last comment I was in a hurry!
Just to clarify my main point was that in the media some people are questioning whether rape is all that bad if you know the attacker.
I think this is a result of this fashion for women to try and look like porn stars with fake tan, breast implants, removal of pubic hair and in soap operas in the UK teenage girls are portrayed as highly sexually active.The general image in the media shows highly sexualised young women as the norm and I think this is confusing. Because rape is rape! and the way you feel inside is the same even if to follow the fashion of looking like a whore/porn star. In fact I think this fashion is driving some young British women towards Islam to rebel against it. Our culture is really *****ed!
Thanks for saying that, Tracy! You too, April and everybody.
I love you too, Laurelin.
xxxooo
Heart
I still remember the squeak of the mailman’s brakes, sitting at my desk typing and if it was the time your magazine was due I’d run out to that mailbox and no more work would get done for the next few hours! lol It was like a wonderfully rich dessert – I’d actually make myself stop reading it to save some for later.
Then, as now, we are very different, but you are still one of my favorite writers. I mostly love hearing about your life around the farm, your animals and all your great children.
Preventing Rape:
1. Do not go out at night unarmed — baseball bat, club, or car keys.
2. Leave a party immediately if men predominate and are drinking too much. Better still, do not go to parties where men are there in the first place. Women never socialize with men in Japan! Even straight women never do this.
3. Do not visit the living quarters of any man alone, unless you know you can beat them within an inch of their lives all by yourself.
4. Do not travel places without money on your own person, and alternative ways of getting home, should you feel unsafe.
5. If you do get raped, you have other options besides telling your story to patriarchs. There are always other ways of dealing with rapists. I won’t write them here, but feminists have done this for decades.
6. Report sexists, preditory men, harrassers and other pigs to other women.
7. Women, believe other women when they point out the men who are causing problems at your company or campus. Listen, get the word out about who the oppressors are, and surround them on the campus. Throw stuff at them, and label them rapists with spray paint or another idendifying color.
8. Get some self-defense training and use it!
9. If men keep harrassing you, you can haul off and smash them down. I used to do this with any man who kept bothering me. Teenage boys I made quick work of. Tell them to shut up in a loud voice, give three warnings and then bash them! Get some practice fighting back and knocking the wind out of a man at least once in your life in self-defense.
10. If you’re walking alone and a man approarches you, yell at him! Go hostile real quick and real fast! Men are used to compliance in women, so get real mean real fast and in their face and they’ll get scared off. They are not used to aggression and out and out anger in women. Get used to yelling, and slamming down phones on male telemarketers for practice. A friend of mine did that all the time to recover from abuse.
11. Do not ever give men the benefit of the doubt, they’re killers, rapists and idiots on a good day. Remember, every rapist had a mother, and every harrasser is a nice family man. Just think O.J. Simpson and his charming self on T.V. commercials for heavens sake!
12. Alert all women to the dangers of rape, and encourage all women you know to walk each other to cars at night, stay late with colleagues so they aren’t alone in offices, and if you live in a bad neighborhood get a gun and learn how to use it.
My friend Michelle kept a loaded shotgun under her bed. If some strange man showed up on her door step she aimed the gun at him and told him to run. Word got out, and her house was never broken into.
13. Take women home if they are in trouble. Help women who are being harrassed in public. Call the police, yell at enemies, lend money to women to escape by taxi. Protect other women.
14. Don’t date men who are police officers, soldiers or other violent professionals. Just stop it!
15. That’s about all I can think of now.
Rape is something women can actively combat, but first we have to believe each other and assume that men are bad. They are guilty of everything until proved innocent in my book. Men do all kinds of creepy things to women, and they brag about “scoring” with women all the time. They’re pigs, monsters and bores. When I call someone a bore, it is the very worst of insults.
Get tough! You don’t have to put up with a world of loud mouth jerky boys, or clueless preditory men.
If you want to create space for women, take over a bar for the evening and tell the men to get lost when they come in. Carry baseball bats to your cars when you leave this place. Make a man run in fear of his life every couple of years or so.
Get men to believe that women are violent killers after their heads. Don’t be nice to them, be very mean and very aggressive.
In the long term, eliminate the rapist gene pool. Marry men (if you have to) who are shorter and weaker than you are!
That’s it for now. This stuff works. Remember, anger is a woman’s best friend!
Satsuma,
This is what we should tell our little girls when we tuck them into bed every night. Instead of fairy tales.
You know, Mary, I don’t consider stranger-rape fearmongering and lessons about how it’s incumbent upon women to “prevent” rape by protecting ourselves such that the perp moves to an easier target a productive pastime for adult women in the daytime, much less little girls at bedtime.
How strange: I’m used to seeing the ‘how women can prevent rape’ (i.e. rape is womens’ fault) checklists from MRAs.
1. That’s going to be amusing at the grocery store and not particularly useful if you face a gun.
2. Why shouldn’t I go to parties that I want to go to?
3. Not useful if they have a gun. Also, puts the blame on women.
4. Ok. I usually have my own money.
5. Has a good chance of getting you arrested.
6. Ok, then what?
7. Has a very good chance of getting you arrested and also expelled.
8. Most self-defense is not particularly effective unless you’re willing to kill. This is also blaming the woman.
9. If you attack without physical provocation (and even with, sometimes), you stand a very good chance of being arrested or sued.
10. Makes you look like an idiot if someone wants the time or something.
11. Being aware is always a good thing, but one must live in this world.
12. Define ‘bad’ neighborhood. Poor? Also, be aware of gun laws for your area.
13. Ok.
14. All female police officers and soldiers are part of the problem, I assume. And again? You’re blaming the woman.
“If you want to create space for women, take over a bar for the evening and tell the men to get lost when they come in.”
Unless you rent the bar, you have absolutely no right to do this.
“Carry baseball bats to your cars when you leave this place. Make a man run in fear of his life every couple of years or so.”
Do you suggest random attack or do you stalk for awhile first? And this will also get arrested.
“My friend Michelle kept a loaded shotgun under her bed. If some strange man showed up on her door step she aimed the gun at him and told him to run.”
If your friend Michelle actually did this, then she would quite rightly have faced charges of assault. You cannot threaten someone with a deadly weapon for no cause.
Women:
I am moving comments, beginning with Satsuma’s response to Amy’s Brain’s “Open Letter to Satsuma”, and responses, back over to the “Men, Boys, Sons,” thread which I closed, wherein everyone was supposed to post their one final magnum opus response re these issues around Satsuma’s posting style, and that was going to be that.
Satsuma couldn’t figure out how to respond to Amy’s post, and that’s because Amy does not allow responses. So she responded here in this thread. Then I responded. Then Satsuma. Then Rebecca. Then funnie. And so on. All of which responses belong over in the now-closed thread if the thread were not going to be closed after all.
So I’m moving them over there and returning this thread to a discussion of feminism as a movement to END human suffering, as opposed to increasing MY human suffering in moderating these comments.
Argh.
My bad. It’s the Religious Right and Daughters as Property thread.
http://womensspace.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/the-religious-right-and-daughters-as-property/
My list stands. All of the things on it have been done by women. Some of those things on the list worked for me, some worked for friends, and others worked for women I heard about from the police and other authorities.
Women can live in denial about men, or they can prepare to do battle.
Edited per my comment 118 in the Daughters and Religious Right thread. Heart
I agree, Miranda.
I want women to keep themselves safe, and I teach my daughters how to keep themselves as safe as they possibly can.
But women being raped is never about their not having kept themselves safe. Women being raped is about male violence, full stop. We can do everything “right” and still be raped.
I would like to keep that focus. Men rape. It is up to men to stop rape. It is not up to women to knock ourselves out trying to keep men from raping us.
Heart sometimes I think “keeping safe” is a form of oppression itself. If you are always worried about “keeping safe” what aren’t you doing? Living?
Sorry to be so gloomy here, but men can’t even control their hate speech against women on talk radio, what makes you think they will ever decide to stop raping women.
Men hate women. Why would they ever change?
Just want to let women know that Satsuma’s list last night gave me a huge grin.
I just flipped off a response within seconds.
I love radfemles sci-fi and Satsuma is just a really great writer in that vein. Plus, her love of hyperbole surpasses even my own.
I assure you that, even though I was a lesbian separatist at the time I was raising my young daughter, at no time did I regale her with concepts of rape at bedtime.
I went to specialty children’s bookstores and selected the best possible choices, and read them to my daughter in her regular state of drowsy happiness before she went off to sleep.
Relax!
Mary
Heart didn’t move my earlier response, but I’ll post my final comment here.
Satsuma stands by her list. I stand by my response and add this:
Many of her suggestions are irresponsible and have the potential to be dangerous.
I also notice that, according to Satsuma’s story of when she was threatened in the parking garage, she behaved much more intelligently than those suggestions would indicate. She hid and sought help, which was smart, instead of attacking, which is what she advocates.
Miranda,
I understand why people get upset at Satsuma’s posts. It’s not a heterosexual/lesbian thing. Satsuma’s posts are heavy on women blaming, and negative statements of what women do/don’t do. And often there are anti-feminist statements tucked in there, such as her statements on women in economics, how men “shield” women from economic burdens, and how women choose bad majors and that is why they get low paying jobs. It’s ok to frown upon heterosexuals, but why does it always have to focus on heterosexual -women-
Thanks, Kiuku.
Well said.
Yeah, Kiuku and Miranda, re keeping ourselves safe. Of course we trade around tips on how to keep safe when we find ourselves in dangerous situations. When I work late, for example, and ride the bus home or have to walk a ways to my car, and I’m in downtown Seattle, certain parts of it, I walk basically in the middle of the street. That is some deterrent, given that there are at least a few cars which will pass every so often.
But taken to its logical outworking, if the focus is on women/girls keeping ourselves safe, then we will be blamed when we get raped, just as the good king Abdul of Saudi Arabia blames the woman he has sentenced to 200 lashings because it was up to her to keep herself safe by not going out with strange men (never mind the fact that non-strange men are often not safe either) and she didn’t.
Men may never stop raping, that is very true. But the responsibility for rape is squarely on them, 100 percent, full stop. No woman is EVER to blame EVER EVER EVER for being in the “wrong place at the wrong time”, for marrying/partnering with the “wrong” person, for having had too much to drink, I don’t care WHAT a woman does, she is NEVER responsible or even remotely, minutely at fault when she is raped. Males are 100 percent responsible for this.
That’s the difficulty we have when we talk about being safe. Which doesn’t mean, either, that we shouldn’t talk about it, because we have to.
I mean, I don’t care if a woman is four sheets to the wind, dancing naked for her husband in their bedroom. If she suddenly changes her mind and decides she’s not up for being touched at all, and he puts his hands on her or any other body part on her, he’s a fucking rapist. Full stop.
Very intense for me.
I agree that there are steps to help keep ourselves safe, and that we should always be ready to help another woman or a child, whether trading tips or walking each other to our cars.
However, many of those ‘anti-rape checklists’ treat rape as an inevitable occurance…to borrow a phrase from Ginmar, rape is like the weather, something that just happens, and it’s smart to carry a raincoat to avoid the worst effects.
When, actually, rape requires a man deciding to rape. The thought must occur, the action follow. Again, quoting Ginmar, if you have 20 drunk naked women in a room, unless there’s a rapist in there too, they’ll be just fine.
Thanks for saying it not a woman’s responsibilty if she is raped . I was very upset by that being implied. Most women or girls are raped by someone they, and often trust. Many rapists make sure that they get their “trust” before raping. This can over minutes or years. By getting trust, it makes harder for the woman or girl to be believe, or even to believe herself. Rapists can be very manipulative, and often enjoy playing mind games. Rapists want women and girls to have self-hate, for that gives them power.
Some women and girls are in positions where society see them as liars and “sluts”. How ofen are prostituted women and girls, and is dismiss as just “part of the job”. How do young women get dated raped, and told that is their fault. These lies frightened many women not to report rape.
Rape happen because violent men think they will get away with it.
Indeed, Rebecca.
This was posted on the Ms. Boards in 2002 (or thereabouts) – it’s a response to “warning! protect yourself!” spam.
IT IS TRIGGERING
And it contains some “go kill/maim yourself” language with which I don’t agree, but I emailed the author of the forward a long time ago, and she talked about how it was just something she dashed off out of sheer frustration…so, though I’m reprinting the entire thing here as it was posted, just take that part with a grain of salt, if you please. I think it’s still useful. More useful than lessons on how women can “prevent” rape, anyway.
**************************
Please read this message.
I just got something forwarded from a friend that is
another version of a very common email forward, and I
used to be one of the people who forwarded them too,
but they annoy me a lot now. They are the “What women
should do to prevent themselves from being raped”
forwards.
I’ve seen probably dozens of these emails now. What
women should wear, how women should act, when women
should and should not go outside and if they do how
they should behave, how they should look, what they
should do when they are approached by a strange man,
how they should fight or not fight if they are
attacked.
Here is what bothers me about these emails, and it is
a pretty simple thing -
Women are not the people who can stop men from
committing rape.
Men are.
So, I understand the good intentions behind whoever is
writing these things, I understand why they are
forwarded around the internet with the advice to
Forward This To Every Woman You Know message always
there. I have forwarded these things myself, in the
past. I won’t anymore.
If I’ve seen dozens of them, for years, I have to
think that most people with email accounts,
particularly women, have also seen them multiple
times. And I’m sick of them. So I had an idea, and I’m
really tired right now but because I just read another
one of these messages, I’m going to write this.
You can forward this to everyone you know and put my
full name on it, Jennifer Robinson. I live in
Virginia. My email address is jendaizb@aol.com, and I
don’t give a damn what people think of me for writing
this. Most of these forwards don’t have the names of
the original author for some reason.
PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO EVERY MAN YOU KNOW:
Fifty Ways Prevent Yourself from Being a Rapist:
1. Do not think you have the right to rape a woman.
2. Do not rape a woman. Do not rape a man.
3. Learn what rape is.
4. Rape is forcing someone to have sex with you when
they do not want to.
5. Most rapes are committed by men who know the women
they are raping. If the woman you are forcing to have
sex with you happens to be your girlfriend, your
neighbor, your cousin, your sister, or your wife, it
is still RAPE.
6. When someone says no to you, that means you have no
right to force yourself on them.
7. When someone pushes you away, or otherwise
indicates, verbally or with physical movement that
they do not want to have sex with you, and you force
yourself on them, that is rape.
8. If you see a woman in a parking lot, don’t rape
her.
9. If you see a woman walking alone at night, don’t
rape her.
10. If you see a woman in a short skirt, don’t rape
her.
11, If you see a woman with long hair, don’t rape her.
12. If you see a woman walking down a dark street at 4
AM, naked, don’t rape her.
13. If you see a woman who is not carrying pepper
spray for self protection, does not know karate, does
not have a gun, and is not even holding an umbrella to
ward you off, still don’t rape her.
14. If you see a woman who has a sign on her head that
says “I Want Sex”, you don’t have the right to force
sex upon her.
15. If you’re at a party, and a girl is drunk, and she
wants you to kiss her and touch her but then she wants
you stop, STOP.
16. If you’re on a date with someone and they want to
go so far, but then stop, you STOP. If you don’t stop,
it is called rape.
17. Rape is a crime, whether you go to prison for it
or not, whether it is reported or not, whether you’re
convicted, or whether anyone believes the woman you
rape, or whether you get a goddamn medal of honor for
all the rapes you got away with committing, IT’S A
CRIME and it’s a crime against humanity, which has
more to do with your conscience and morals and the
rights of women to live as human beings on this planet
without having to be in fear their bodies will be
violated, than with laws and prison sentences. If you
are a rapist, you have violated a person’s right to
simply live. News Flash – you do not have the right to
do that. Neither does any other man or woman you know.
18. Rape is about power. It is not about sex. Do
something else with your misogyny than rape a woman.
Try, say, reading a book. Or committing yourself to a
mental institution so we will have one less rapist
walking around.
20. Men are the people who can stop rape. Not women.
For proof of this fact, look at statistics on rape for
a second. It happens every minute of every day, and it
is usually not ever reported so statistics on it are
always underestimates. Women have been trying to
prevent themselves from being raped for a few
centuries. IT HASN’T WORKED YET.
21. Rapists destroy lives in a way that murderers do
not. If you rape a person, you are as inhumane as a
murderer.
22. Before you decide to rape someone, go to visit an
emergency room one night, and ask the nurse on duty at
the triage, how many raped women have been there that
evening. Then ask about the rape kits they did on the
women, the DNA evidence they collected. Then spend a
few years of your life talking with women who were
raped and see how it has affected them every single
day of their lives. You might reconsider rape after
that, if you’re actually human. If you’re not human,
please kill yourself before you rape someone.
23. Note that you are living in a patriarchal society
which is the only reason why committing rape will
occur to you as something you have a right to do in
the first place. Note that, despite this fact, you
STILL DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO RAPE ANYONE EVER.
24. Know that a few million human beings on this
planet right now want you dead, if you’re a rapist,
because we’re sick and tired of you walking around,
and our self protectoin mechainsms haven’t worked, and
you’re not about to be a real popular guy if anyone
finds out you are a rapist, unless, you are hanging
around other rapists.
25. Know that whether anyone ever finds out you
committed a rape or not, you are still a replusive,
weak, pathetic, disgusting, grotesque, inhumane,
repulsive, worthless, twisted individual if you rape
someone, and this fact will remain true, and you will
remain guilty forever, whether she tells anybody or
not. And you can be the one to live with that; if you
have a conscience.
26. If you don’t have a conscience, go murder yourself
instead of raping a woman.
27. Read Ms. Magazine instead of Playboy
28. Stay away from pornography. Most rapists love it.
That should be a danger sign.
29. Cut your hands off. You won’t be able to use them.
That will help matters.
30. Cut your penis off. Or ask me to do it for you;
I’ll be happy to, if you’re considering committing a
rape.
31. Stay away from women.
32. Stay away from little girls.
33. Stay away from boys.
34. Stay away from the human race.
35. You are not the superior sex, never will be, never
were, never are. Women are equal to you, and sometimes
women will be smarter than you. This is called life.
Deal with it.
36. Sometimes women will not like you. That is our
right. See above.
37. Sometimes women will rebuff your advances. In
other words, we don’t always want to have sex with
you. Note, no one has any duty to have sex with
anyone, ever. You are no exception.
38. Sometimes women will think you are stupid, will
make fun of you, will not treat you well, will fire
you from a job, will laugh at you, will refuse to go
out with you. Just like men can do these things, so
can women. This does not mean you have a right to
commit rape.
39. If a woman has sex with you one day and doesn’t
want to have sex with you the next, that is her right.
You do not have the right to rape her.
40. If a woman has sex with you and one hour later
does not want to have sex with you again, that is her
right. You do not have the right to rape her.
41. If a woman has sex all the time, with lots of men,
and you think she is a slut for it, you still don’t
have the right to rape her. Women have the right to
have sex with who they choose, when they choose,
wherever they choose if it is consentual. Just like
men.
42. No woman has ever, will ever or does ever ASK to
be raped. No woman LIKES being raped. No woman INVITES
you to rape her. No woman has EVER ASKED FOR IT. Try
to remember that.
43. You don’t have a right to rape your wife, your
daughter, your granddaughter, your best friend, your
girlfriend, a girl you met at the grocery store, your
boss, your coworker, your student, your professor,
your niece, your next door neighbor, a woman you do
not know, or ANYONE ELSE. Ever. Period. End of Story.
44. Do not forward around emails to people telling
them what women should do to prevent themselves from
being raped. Women have never, and will never be able
to stop the phenomena of rape, even as women do a good
job of trying to, because we are not the ones with
penises. Very simple. You are the only person who can
prevent you from raping me or any other woman. You.
Not me. You. Not any woman. You. You must stop you
from being a rapist. It is YOUR job. Take
responsibility for it for a change. I’m tired of
giving out the 1-800-656-HOPE number to women who have
been raped. I WANT TO GIVE OUT A HOTLINE TO YOU.
1-800-STOP IT NOW
But that hotline does not exist.
45. Go build a crisis center to stop yourself and
every other man you know from becoming a rapist. Get
funding for it, which will require a lot of work on a
daily basis. Hire counselors. Hold group therapy and
individual therapy sessions. Try, again, to get
funding for it because it will be difficult to do so.
Women have been doing this for decades. They’re called
rape crisis centers and we have too many of them. They
should not have to exist at all.
46. When you converse with your male friends, be sure
to warn them to NOT RAPE ANYONE if they are going out
late at night, or if they are going out with a new
girl, or if they are doing anything at all where rape
might be an issue of concern. Women do this all the
time, warning their friends to be careful, warning
their daughters, their sisters, their mothers to be
careful, to watch out, to lock their doors, to keep
their doors locked, to carry pepper spray. We have all
sorts of advice we give each other based on our very
rational fear of rape. Why don’t you try giving every
man you now advice on how to prevent rape?
47. If you know someone who is a rapist, do something
about it. Do not ignore, tolerate, pretend you don’t
know or don’t care, or congratulate him. DO SOMETHING
about it, such as, telling him he is the scum of the
earth, reporting him to the police, beating him up, or
put up a billboard with his picture, his name and the
word Rapist in bright red letters on his front lawn.
48. If you’re a rapist, go to therapy for a few years,
perhaps the rest of your life, spend some time in a
psychiatric hospital, perhaps dozens of times, perhaps
years, and try to figure out how to live with yourself
and what you did, which is exactly what many women who
are raped by people such as you must do.
49. Donate money to RAINN, since you haven’t succeeded
in stopping rape from happening yet, so we still need
these sexual assault centers, and maybe you should try
being the person who donates money to them, rather
than the people who were raped. http://www.rainn.org
1-800-656-HOPE. Or donate money to your local sexual
assault crisis center. Or donate money to one of the
women you know who has been raped so she can go to
therapy, because statistically, there is little chance
that you do not know several rape “survivors”.
50. SEND THIS TO EVERY MAN YOU KNOW. And when you get
the next email telling every woman on the planet what
to do to prevent herself from being raped, and it
says, “forward it to every woman you know”, don’t do
it. For an example, see the message below and consider
how ridiculous it is that women should have to live in
a world where we write, read, and send each other
these kind of messages, and know that it is not fair,
and wonder for a minute, why you never got a message
like this before addressed to men.
#46 is one of my hands-down, all-time favorites. Imagine!
Exactly Heart and Miranda. And there is no comparison for the crime of rape in men, because rape is something that men single women out for. Yes men rape other men, but women are the prey of rape. It’s a hate crime. A man is going to rape a woman no matter what she is wearing or doing. The only reason we should be discussing about “why” a woman gets raped, is why a man rapes.
Thanks Funnie. I was upset by what was implied women-blaming, and that rape only counted when it is “stranger”. I lived with sexual violent violence for 21 years, from aged 6 to 21. A lot was in my family, some by “friends” and a lot as a prostituted girl and woman. None of my experiences fitted into a place where I could “protect” myself.
Sexual violence to women and girls is never the fault of that they do not protect themselves. Many women and girls are so terrified that they cannot remember how to protect themselves. But, more many rapists have brainwashed the woman and child to feel they “deserve” what has happened.
How does a girl understand that her “father-figure” can hurt her so. How can a child understand such hate.
How can a woman or girl cope when her “friend” treat her like a piece of meat. How can she protect herself when she is frozen in shock.
And how can a prostituted woman or girl be allow to even say that she has been raped. Will she be believed, or just learn to closed down as she is raped over and over.
For, women protecting themselves from rape is a red herring. For rapists will rape whatever women do or wear, for they want to destroy women in body and soul.
I have not been raped for round 15 years, but I live with trauma now. I know that many women are fighting to end rape, I do have faith in that.
“I also notice that, according to Satsuma’s story of when she was threatened in the parking garage, she behaved much more intelligently than those suggestions would indicate. She hid and sought help, which was smart, instead of attacking, which is what she advocates.”
Miranda, I noticed that contradiction, too, and posted a comment to you about it last night. Not only did Satsuma behave intelligently that night, she was also very afraid. And apparently, according to what she told her companion that night, being so viciously terrified by hatemongers is a common experience for Satsuma.
That comment hasn’t been published, which could be unintentional or by Heart’s choice. If Heart decided against publishing it, I’m sure it’s because I critiqued more than just Satsuma’s writing style, opinions that weren’t requested. I, too, can be outspoken and straightforward to a degree that others call *blunt*.
CoolAunt, I moved the comment you are talking about to the Religious Right/Daughters thread because it seemed more appropriate there.
Heart
Thank you, Heart.
Please know that my comment above wasn’t to try to force it. It wasn’t even a complaint. I realize I shared more than I was asked to, so I didn’t feel silenced when I thought it wouldn’t be published. For the same reason, I won’t feel silenced if you delete it.
It’s not that I don’t stand behind my comments just as others do theirs. I do. Still, I don’t need to express my opinions where and when they might cause headaches for others. Those should be my headaches.
There are many tales of fights I have had with men, but I thought I should also include another story of the parking lot. Because I find, you just have to do something when you are afraid or threatened by these men of the world. Men, in my opinion, get outraged at the rape of a girl or woman they personally know, and the outrage in my opinion is based on the idea that women are his property. Now of course this is sugar coated in our seemingly post-modern world, but a rape is a property crime in the minds of men.
There are many tactics out there, many many and more many. Remember “Thelma and Louise”? How women across the country responded to that movie? It was fiction, but also it was a rare fictional glance at women doing something different. A close friend of mine had a bumper sticker on her car that read something like “Thelma and Louise Live”. We both loved the sticker. One day, we were out at lunch and my friend drove me home. We noticed that someone had ripped the sticker off the bumper, and that was really creepy!
I completely agree that men are always at fault for rape, just as robbers are always at fault for robbing, unless it’s bread and they’re starving.
All I am saying is we live in a dangerous world, and I think a lot of women don’t consider this. Many do, but you’d be surprised at a lot of women who don’t get this stuff.
I liked the long list, and think it is a good one. I think I’m going to print it and give it to guys I know. Personally speaking, in my entire life, I have never once heard a man in conversation ever get outraged over rape, or ever tell other man not to rape. (In the news men get outraged over the rape of their wives or daughters–I explained this above). They never talk about it, except if it comes up in the news. No man has ever reported that he put a stop to sexist or rapist talk in all male groups.
There may be men out there who try to tell other men that all rape is wrong, and that men need to stop this period, but again, in my experience, they never ever say a thing about this.
Their silence is just deafening about so many issues of deep concern to women. It just makes you wonder.
On the rare occasion that a man even speaks up at all on the need for female / male equality, or when they say that they think America is “ready” for a woman president, I often get the feeling that this is just saying what I might want to hear, not because they deeply feel anything about the outrage of women getting raped by men, or women getting blocked from elective office due to lack of access to donors, or even outrage that women make a lot less money than men, and I don’t care what the work is, it is work, and people who do it should get enough money for the basics without struggling so much.
I’m wandering here. I have to learn to be pithy and clever the way Mary Sunshine is. Maybe I’m out of it, or I’m in conversations where this sort of topic just doesn’t come up. My world is rather sedate, polite and lacking in any strong opinions at all. The men in my office are quietly woman hating — it’s an energy they give off, that is invisible to other people in the room. I just detect the silent contempt or hatred because as a minority in a majority world, I am forced to be more vigilent with everyone it seems. It wears me out at times, but then again it gives me certain dramatic advantages.
I don’t know what the answer is. Maybe I can ask men what they are doing about educating other men not to rape women. See what they say. Great ideas here sisters, I really learned a lot from all of you! Just fantastic critiques, clobbers and advice!
P.S. Mary Sunshine, I totally got your joke about reading my list to a daughter as a bedtime story. You seem like the type who would read something of great value to a child at night.
It was a funny comment! I like your sense of humor and hyperbolie, of which I am exceedingly fond. Perhaps this literary device, along with my beloved polemic, is out of style here.
I am often out of style on so many things, I’ve just lost count!
My friends often tease me about my histrionic nature, and a few years ago they coined the term “She’s born to Blog.” Guess I was meant to do it! New Bumper Sticker anyone
Good list, Satsuma. I have in fact used most of these tactics on your list and speaking from real life experience (and I have a lot), I can tell you these tactics have worked for me. I came out on top the vast majority of time. Not always tho. Once in awhile I didn’t come out on top. But even when I lost, it enabled me to stay alive and survive in one piece.
I can also say from experience that your list, Funnie (and yes, I know you didn’t write it), doesn’t work. It’s absurd to depend on a man’s generosity to do the right thing. Yes, it would be nice if men took responsibility for themselves and quit being such assholes, but shit in one hand and wish in another and see which one you get first.
Miranda, it sounds to me like you’ve got a whole bunch of excuses and would rather take the risks and play the odds rather than take safety precautions and change a thing about your behavior. I hope the Wheel of Fortune works out for you. And nah, it’s not woman-blaming. Any more than telling a child not to take candy from a stranger is child-blaming.
In the end, it’s our responsibility and up to us to protect ourselves and keep ourselves safe the best we can and still live a normal life (well, as normal as it can be in a society saturated in rape, violence and woman-hating). I mean, you wouldn’t recklessly venture out into a jungle unprepared, unarmed, unprotected and leave it all up to luck, would you? Well then why would anyone go out into a concrete jungle like that? It’s our life. Our life is our responsibility. No one else’s. It’s not up to anyone else but us. Because no one else cares, ok? So start acting like you’re in a war zone. Or a jungle. Because you are. There’s a woman battered every 9 seconds, raped every minute and murdered every 15 minutes in this country. There are 25,000 women missing in the state of California alone. Get a clue already.
No need to be paranoid about the whole thing. My life is filled with routine where nothing much happens most of the time.
Luckynkl is just practical, and very well informed, that life is really about odds. You can make the odds more in your favor, and a knowledge of radical feminism will definitely give you quite an advantage.
You can really choose what you want your life to be. It’s always up to you!
I just read Satsuma’s list again and I think it’s pretty good. Women need to be proactive and bond with other women in our own defense. Like every other group on this earth we are going to have to fight for our freedom. If your neighborhood was plagued by armed robberies you wouldn’t leave it up to the armed robbers to solve the problem now, would you? Yet women, even feminists, often do exactly that with rape. And when they do so, I often think it is due to a subconscious devaluation of women, as leaving the problem of rape up to the rapists to solve is guaranteed to fail.