Looting is a Response, Not an Opportunity

Scott Woods Makes Lists

We need to reexamine looting.

Regarding its critics, let me start by saying that, at the level of determining solid community building options, critics of looting are right: it’s not productive. What is built from looting? Not much. Certainly nothing in the concrete world. On top of that, looting is illegal. It is against the law to break into a building and take what’s inside of it out. I don’t think anybody is confused about that, or believes that taking things out of a liquor store or burning down a Little Caesars should be confused with an urban renewal initiative. None of this, however, means that looting has no merit as an act.

Looting is a response, not an opportunity. Looting doesn’t randomly happen. Looting is what happens after something else has happened to a group of people that feel disenfranchised. There are not bands of random black people running…

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#GamerGate, meet #Ferguson; #Ferguson, meet #GamerGate

we hunted the mammoth

Not a video game

If you grit your teeth and do a search for #GamerGate and #Ferguson together on Twitter, you will find Tweet after Tweet from worried #GamerGaters earnestly imploring their comrades not to make any connections between the two hashtags. Why? Because they know that those who cross the streams are likely to Tweet things like the following.

This what happens when #GamerGaters try to make sense of what is happening in Ferguson.

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Jian Ghomeshi Drops Lawsuit Against CBC with Perfect Timing

Today Jian Ghomeshi dropped his bogus $55 million law suit against the CBC. Suit dropped with cost. Meaning that Ghomeshi has dropped the suit, and is now required to pay the CBC’s legal fees, totaling $18,000.

How fitting that this suit has been dropped on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Now to wait for Ghomeshi’s day in court, as at least 3 women have filed complaints with the police.

This is Rape Culture

On Tuesday November 18th, the National Post published a story on their website about Andrew Bettencourt, an Ottawa man who abducted his 18-year-old ex-girlfriend at knife point, raped her twice, and was finally arrested 6 hours later. You can read the story here.

One of the things that jumped out at me about how the National Post decided to represent this story was that they do not, at any time, refer to her being sexually assaulted. Instead, they chose to report that the two “had sex”.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is what rape culture looks like. Last I checked, a person cannot give consent at knife-point. So then why is the National Post printing that the two “had sex”?

Shame on you, National Post.

Street Harrassment, and What Constitutes a “Real Victim”

Today I was reading an article posted on the CBC about a vulgar joke hurled at a Montreal reporter. Of course, the usual sorts of comments followed, like, “printing this only takes away from real victims”, “can’t you take a joke”, and “stop giving them attention, and they’ll go away”.

The fact that so many people seem to think that street harassment is just a joke, and that those subjected to it aren’t real victims outlines exactly how normalized this kind of behaviour is. As a culture, we feel as though we can derail and silence people, mostly women, who have been groped, or harassed in public spaces. I find it disturbing how many people are willing to wave off discussions of street harassment and assault in the same week that a young woman was sexually assaulted and left for dead in Winnipeg, and another woman was sexually assaulted a short time later.

Let me spell it out for you: street harassment isn’t flattering, It isn’t a joke, and it isn’t something we can ignore until it goes away. It’s a symptom of a much larger problem, and talking about it in our communities is just one of the steps we need to take in order to make those same communities safer for half the population. Street harassment is about power, entitlement, and dehumanization. If you don’t believe me, then let me ask you this: If street harassment is just about flattery, then why do those who engage in it become abusive when a victim tells them to stop? Why are victims followed, and stalked? If it’s just about complements, then why are the comments made sexually explicit?

If you can listen to the stories, and see the stats on street harassment, then how could you possibly say that there are no “real victims”? Our culture needs to collectively get our heads out of our asses.

The Acceptable Feminist

So, I ran into this image on facebook yesterday, and really all I have to say about it is:

Basically the image boils down to, “I like Feminists, but only if they know their place as dictated by the current problematic standards, are viewed by men as “fuckable”, and are quiet and apologetic. No, just no.

The implication that a “real” Feminist only tackles issues of “women living in disadvantaged areas of the globe” works to derail any critique of sexism here at home by essentially denying that it exists at all. It’s the same bullshit Feminists have been dealing with forever. This “Feminism light” that has been bandied around in pop culture recently doesn’t actually do anything to help Feminism as a legitimate socio-political, grassroots movement, because it’s only aim is to make women conform and fit into convenient little boxes where they can’t cause trouble.

Remember guys, you’re only a real Feminist if you’re pretty, white, allow other people to dictate what you should do with your own body, and let others dictate what rape is.

The thing with any movement committed to fostering change is that it isn’t convenient, or pretty, and it doesn’t smile when you tell it to. My Feminism will not be dictated to me, and I don’t care if that upsets anybody.