QUEERING THE GAME OF LIFE

"As Black women, we do not have the privilege or the space to call ourselves “slut” without validating the already historically entrenched ideology and recurring messages about what and who the Black woman is. We don’t have the privilege to play on destructive representations burned in our collective minds, on our bodies and souls for generations. Although we understand the valid impetus behind the use of the word “slut” as language to frame and brand an anti-rape movement, we are gravely concerned. For us the trivialization of rape and the absence of justice are viciously intertwined with narratives of sexual surveillance, legal access and availability to our personhood. It is tied to institutionalized ideology about our bodies as sexualized objects of property, as spectacles of sexuality and deviant sexual desire. It is tied to notions about our clothed or unclothed bodies as unable to be raped whether on the auction block, in the fields or on living room television screens. The perception and wholesale acceptance of speculations about what the Black woman wants, what she needs and what she deserves has truly, long crossed the boundaries of her mode of dress."

An Open Letter from Black Women to SlutWalk Organizers  (via blck-grrl)

(Source: sluteverbabe, via strugglingtobeheard)

"

Why do they fight us? Because they think we are dangerous beasts? Why are we dangerous beasts? Because we shake and often break the white’s comfortable stereotypic images they have of us: the Black domestic, the lumbering nanny with twelve babies sucking her tits, the slant-eyed Chinese with her expert hand — “They know how to treat a man in bed,” the flat-faced Chicana or Indian, passively lying on her back, being fucked by the Man a la La Chingada.

The Third World woman revolts: We revoke, we erase your white male imprint. When you come knocking on our doors with your rubber stamps to brand our faces with DUMB, HYSTERICAL, PASSIVE PUTA, PERVERT, when you come with your branding irons to burn MY PROPERTY on our buttocks, we will vomit the guilt, self-denial and race-hatred you have force-fed into us right back into your mouth.

We are done being cushions for your projected fears. We are tired of being your sacrificial lambs and scapegoats.

Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa, Speaking In Tongues: A Letter to 3rd World Women Writers (via sinidentidades)

(Source: amazonfeminist, via lesbianseparatist)

10 Things You Should Know About International Women’s Rights

confessionsofcunts:

1. One in three women die or are seriously injured as a result of gender-based violence. Violence against women results in more deaths among women ages 15 to 44 than the total number of women who die because of war, malaria, and cancer.

2. An estimated four million women and girls are bought and sold worldwide each year, either into marriage, prostitution or slavery.

3. One out of every six American women have been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. An estimated 60 percent of all rapes are not reported to the police.

4. Approximately 96 million young women in developing countries still cannot read or write. Globally, girls account for 55 percent of children not in school.

5. Nearly 75 percent of those displaced by violent conflict are women. Displacement leaves women without access to health care, proper nutrition or education. Displaced women face a higher threat of gender-based terrorism and violence.

6. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda resulted in hundreds of thousands of violent sexual assaults, resulting in an estimated 250,000 women falling victim to HIV/AIDS. While many women awaiting treatment died, their perpetrators receive antiretroviral therapies in prison.

7. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that actually denies women the right to vote by law. In other parts of the world, where women are legally allowed to vote, many women still struggle to exercise their rights. For example, in Afghanistan, some women were denied the right to vote in 2009 because the country lacked the necessary amount of female staff members to provide enough polls for women.

8. With its rate of violence, sexual assault and inadequate health care, Afghanistan remains the most dangerous place in the world for women to live.

9. In 1974, Isabel Peron became the world’s first woman president, when she was elected President of Argentina. Around the world, 68 women have served as head of state in their country (not including monarchies). Currently, 38 women serve as head of government around the world. In 1997, Ireland became the first country to succeed power from one female president to another.

10. African nations have more women in parliament than most western nations. Rwanda ranks number one in world rankings for the highest representation of women at 49 percent. 

(via moononwaters-deactivated2011120)

quelola:

muxersita:

[image: a page that reads “To White Feminists:you racism is showing when our anger makes you panic. even when we are not angry at you or your racism, but some simple, ordinary thing. when our expressed anger translates to you as a threat of violence, this is your unacknowledged fear of retribution or exposure and it is revealing your guilt. -Carol Camper”]

All of this.

(Source: slutrockerbitch)

darkjez:

[WOMANIST-MUSINGS]—

“Naturally, Ellie Krupnick posed the question at the end of the piece of whether or not a plus size barbie was actually needed. Talk about an invitation for people to get their fat hating on. Anytime children can see bodies outside of the norm that aren’t being actively stigmatized, this is a good thing. There was everything from the excuse that these dolls would encourage an unhealthy lifestyle, to the supposition that ”

It is easy to see that the worries are based in outright fat hatred.”

“it would ruin the fantasy of playing with something beautiful.”

Ouch.

darkjez:

greaterthanlapsed:

Member states of the UN general assembly - some of whom are prepared to prosecute and jail a woman who seeks an abortion - have been told in blunt terms by their own special rapporteur for health that they are infringing woman’s human rights.

#ossim

**EDIT—For an alternative view which highlights the many ways this report is problematic, please see this post.

(Source: existentialcrisisfactory)