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Harasser Shoots Man for Telling Him to Stop Disrespecting His Wife

July 25, 2016 By HKearl

Via Fox 13 News:

“Shortly before midnight on Sunday, officers say Bradley Mills was outside his home on Mason Avenue [in Florida] with his wife. Mills says he saw and heard two men two houses down staring and whistling at his wife, and told them to stop disrespecting her.

According to the police report, Mills’ wife went inside, and when Mills followed, he heard one of the men shout after him. He allegedly ignored him and kept walking, but turned when the man called out again and saw the man holding a gun, which he shot towards the ground. Then, Mills says the man shot several times at him while following him towards his house. Two of the bullets hit Mills, and he told his wife to call 911.

Authorities say they tracked down the shooter and identified him as Rolando Fernandez Rodriquez. He was arrested at his home on Pine Avenue in Haines City.

Mills was treated for two gunshot wounds at the Heart of Florida Hospital. He is expected to be okay. Rodriquez was transported to the Polk County Jail and charged with Attempted Murder in the 2nd Degree.”

Bradley Mills did everything right as a witness to street harassment. The scary reality is, you never know which harasser will escalate — some will escalate if you ignore, if you speak back assertively (as he did), or if you lash out. All we can do is make the best decision we can in the moment and try to stay safe.

I am grateful he told the harassers they were disrespectful and I’m relieved he will recover from his injuries.

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Filed Under: News stories, street harassment Tagged With: bystander, escalation, florida, gun, shooting, violence

Film: “Ovarian Psycos”

February 15, 2016 By HKearl

UPDATE: Support the film’s Kickstarter campaign!

This new filmOvarian Psycos film is premiering at SXSW!

“The Ovarian Psycos gear up and ride out into the night, fanning out in pairs of two, four, and six. In constant motion, cruising up and down the storied streets of Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles, and Lincoln Heights, they call out to new riders to join them in a journey through the neighborhood. “Whose streets? Our streets!”

Since forming in the summer of 2011 by activist, poet M.C., and single mother, Xela de la X, the Ova’s have made it their mission to cycle for the purpose of healing, reclaiming their neighborhoods, and creating safer streets for women on the Eastside. At first only attracting a few local women, over the past few years the Ovarian Psycos have inspired a ferocious and unapologetic crowd of local heroines who are a visible force along the barrios and boulevards of Los Angeles.

Ovarian Psycos rides along with the Ova’s, exploring the impact of the group’s brand of feminism on neighborhood women and communities as they confront the violence in their lives.”

Wonderful!

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Filed Under: Resources, street harassment Tagged With: bicycling, documentary, film, los angeles, Ovarian Psycos, violence

USA: Bodies on the Threshold: Violence against Sex Workers

December 29, 2015 By Correspondent

Hannah Rose Johnson, Arizona, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

P1090022AbPurple3“The body of the sex worker is one that does not have personal boundaries. Someone who people penetrate all the time. Just like air penetrating the skeleton’s body,” says Maggie Palmer of Hey Baby! Art Against Sexual Violence! in Tucson, AZ, of her latest art piece.

“The skeleton has no skin layer, which centers the mis-perception that sex workers can’t experience street harassment because they are not fully human.” The skeleton sculpture exists in liminal space, she says. “It’s not what we identify as a body, and is clearly a body.” This is symbolic of the ways in which communities deal with gender violence and the deconstruction of heteronormativity and compulsory heterosexuality.

Maggie started the piece for December 17th, the International Sex Workers Day of Remembrance. The purpose of the piece is to use the red umbrella, the chosen symbol of resistance for sex workers, and incorporate themes of invisible bodies through the use of the skeleton. The skeleton has dual meanings–violence against sex workers and intersectional identities such as immigrant, drug users, trans bodies, and people of color. She says, “It centers that violence against sex workers is violence against other marginalized identities. By invisibilizing violence against sex workers, violence is invisibilized against these other identities.”

DSC09143 (2)The cultural narrative built around sex workers is that their bodies are disposable and live in the margins. It is purposeful that Maggie hangs the skeleton in public spaces rather than enclosed buildings. Sex worker bodies are pushed to the margins and bringing the sculpture into the street recenters those margins. She says, “The skeleton’s boundaries are permeable. There is an idea that the dominant power structure is surveilling marginalized bodies…and that the marginalized body is fundamentally flawed. Flaw creates circumstance, as opposed to looking at institutionalized racism, transphobia etc. If you are not fully formed, you have created this. And if you conform to society’s expectations, you don’t have to live a marginalized experience.”

What I find so interesting is that thinking about circumstance invokes the value of choice. But choice is not a factor when we look and name systems and institutions that are built on racism, neoliberal economics and heteronormativity. Maggie and I agree that neither lived experience of survival sex and sex work as a choice is more or less valid. “The sex worker body loses the right to consent,” she says. When a body loses the right to consent, that body has no boundaries. If a body doesn’t have boundaries, acts of violence are justified. Social systems, the way we treat “normal” bodies versus “perserve” bodies reflect gender violence that is bound up in racism, neoliberal economics, citizenship status, HIV status, gender identity and sexual orientation. This is uncomfortable, which Maggie demonstrates in her sculpture.

“The way the sculpture moves in space is disorientating. It swings back and forth, it is a hanging piece. It blows around and does unexpected things you can’t control. This symbolizes how disorienting it is for communities to deconstruct heteronormativity,patriarchy, and gender violence. It forces us to get into a space of ‘unknown.’”

DSC09122Maggie says that street harassment, a form of sexual violence, is a way in which to subjugate and turn bodies into commodities for aesthetic pleasure. And street harassment sometimes punishes for not being aesthetically pleasing enough. This sculpture breaks that gaze, and shocks it. The viewer is reminded of what gender violence and sexual violence really is. She tells me that the skeleton is very exposed, and so is street harassment and sexual violence. Maggie says, “The skeleton is calling upon who has the right to privacy. Marginalized do not have access or the right to privacy.”  The viewer can see right through the skeleton, can see the landscape and city scape right through the ribs and behind the torso.

She says, “This piece is representative of the continuum of violence and social constructs that make violence against sex workers possible.”

The sculpture is currently back in a bag in a closet somewhere in southern Arizona.

Hannah Rose is writing from Tucson, Arizona and Lewiston, Maine (US) as she transitions from the Southwest to the Northeast for a career in sexual violence prevention and advocacy at the college level.  You can check her out on the collaborative artistic poetic sound project HotBox Utopia.

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Filed Under: correspondents Tagged With: sex workers, violence

USA: What Would the World Be Like If All Women Were Safe?

November 15, 2015 By Correspondent

Sara Conklin, Washington, DC, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

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Truth is Beauty | Marco Cochrane

What would that be like? I’ve spent the past several days in quiet contemplation on the matter. After “planning” (read: pinterest’ing) my probably-not-happening-anytime-soon trip to Burning Man, I came across this striking art installation by The Bliss Project, of a 40-foot woman that poses the question, what would the world be like if all women were safe?

Well, for starters, my world would be drastically different. I have built a life around women survivors; women who have braved incomparable odds and battled life’s challenges. I work in a community center and housing complex for women experiencing homelessness. I drum alongside an all-women’s cohort of marching percussionists. I keep a tight-knit group of women warrior friends. And I champion daily, my mother and grandmother who came before me and all they’ve taught me about strength and veracity. (Heck, I even write for this blog.)

What I love the most about this sculpture of the female form is that you can’t hide from it. She is vivaciously and fiercely alive. Her presence is notably dominant on the landscape. But, as the artist Ian Mackenzie mentions, “that very energy is dangerous for women to do in the real world.”

If I closed my eyes and imagined a world in which all women were safe, I see a huge void. Would my all-women’s drumline have the same necessary element of female empowerment? Would my girlfriends have the same compassion and vitality each time we meet? And more interestingly, would the organization I work for simply exist?

Perhaps this speaks more to the lifestyle I’ve chosen, then the dramatic question the artist poses. Nonetheless, it got me thinking about my daily environment and mainly that the threat of being unsafe is what permeates my everyday life.

And what an interesting thought that is – Do you pity the person who lives with that in mind each passing day, or in solidarity, do you choose to champion her?

These are a lot of questions that I do not have the answer to. But, what I can begin to conclude is that if we are faced with a world where women will not, have not, and cannot always be safe, then I am proud there are so many sisters with me. If the impossibility is permanent, together we can lessen it. If we do indeed share the burden, I’m happy at least to know I am sharing it. For being alone in a fight is a scary thing.

Sara works in fundraising events at an organization that empowers women who face homelessness through recovery, wellness training, and housing. She runs her own photography company (saraconklinphotography.com) and a popular website that seeks to connect the world through pictures, sarapose.com.

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Filed Under: correspondents Tagged With: safety, solidarity, violence

End-It Super Bowl Commercial Bingo

February 4, 2011 By HKearl

Will you be watching the Super Bowl this Sunday? I will be sort of watching it (probably doing something else while it’s on in the background and my partner and possibly some of his friends watch it), and I’m dreading the commercials. Objectification of women. “To be manly you must do X, Y, Z” messages. General sexism and homophobia. Sadly, the stereotypes and violence-tolerant messages so many marketers use for these commercials contribute to street harassment and  harassment and violence in general, whether we want to acknowledge it or not.

Via the Men’s Anti-Violence Council’s blog, I found out about a bingo sheet for the commercials produced by Riverview Center in Iowa. If you participate, you can enter a drawing for prizes. I’m going to print it out and use it! And then I’ll report back on it next week and use it to channel some of the frustrations I’ll undoubtedly have after viewing the commercials.

Thanks, Riverview Center & MAC!

And, on a related topic, Jackson Katz gives suggestions for how you can make the focus on Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger a teachable moment for boys and young men in light of his two recent sexual assault allegations.

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Filed Under: male perspective, Resources Tagged With: cultural violence, street harassment, Super Bowl Bingo, violence

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