A call to arms in support of decency, autonomy and justice. PLEASE NOTE AND ALERT: may be a severe TRIGGER EVENT for multiple forms of PTSD for assault survivors or others.
Sexual violence, harassment and predation are major issues in women's lives. Accordingly, feminists and allies have organized annual "Take Back the Night" events at college campuses, towns, cities and elsewhere wherein women symbolically - and for a night, literally - reclaim the night from the predator, the rapist, the abuser, the harasser. The events vary somewhat in tone and structure but are often held near the end of the (U.S.) academic year.
Partially in response to that general annual series of demonstrations and marches, partially in response to well-documented and well-publicized harassment and stalking of many leading women bloggers in the blogosphere and online generally, and partially due to a poorly-received response to such important issues from some OTHER prominent liberal bloggers, some leading lights of the feminist blogosphere and some other allies contributed to a Take Back the Blog event at Crablaw Maryland Weekly on April 28, 2007. It was my honor to organize that volume of material into a "blogswarm." While this issue has meant a lot to me for a long time, I was probably the least qualified person to do the job other than "none of the above," the only alternative at the time.
The serious work of justice remains. And reasonable minds may ask whether any event on the blogosphere can be the lever that moves the mountain of violent patriarchy even one inch, whether a blogospheric event is not one mere "Big Whoop of the Week" when its target is a global humanitarian crisis of violence against women. To quote Twisty Faster of I Blame the Patriarchy, to whose trenchant and skeptical contribution to TBTB 2007 I was and remain now grateful:
Any so-called political blogger who (a) ... does not explicitly, strenuously, and regularly denounce it, and (b) condones an antifeminist commentarian zeitgeist, might as well rename their stupid blog "I Defend the Conviction that Male Abuse of Women Constitutes the Natural Order, Now Where Are the Boobies?"
So....
I write to alert Kossacks that the spring slowly approaches, that they may wish to be aware of Take Back the Night events in their communities, their campus, their places of employment, and to encourage preparation for support and participation in those events NOW, when it's cold in much of the country, rather than waiting for the spring thaw. Now is the time to support these events, to assist in their publicity, on your blogs, among your friends. Family obligations permitting, I will be going back to Princeton to take part in my alma mater's TBTB 2008 event, with the hope of reaching specifically young men, 18 year-old men in attendance who may have grown up sheltered as I did, unaware of this unbelievably brutal reality in the lives of women, and may be skeptical. Young men's frequent ignorance of these issues is a serious challenge but it is not invincible ignorance, happily.
But we can do more.
We can use the blogosphere as a means of giving strength to women specifically online, in our medium, both here at DKos and beyond. We can publish another Take Back the Blog blogswarm, for 2008, ideally edited by someone other than myself. I will do it again over at Crablaw if absolutely no other takers will do so. But I see many leading feminist lights here at DKos. I don't want to call anybody out by name or to presume, but a few come to mind. (And I would LOVE to try to talk this great Kossack into it....)
In any event, if you believe that sexual violence, predation and harassment both in "meatspace" and online are not misfortunes but are outrages against justice that compel a decent person (YOU!) to participate in the fight against them, then hearken to this project.
If you believe that Hillary Clinton is getting treated shabbily by creepy motherfucker Chris Matthews, even if she is not your preferred candidate, hearken to your sisters who face much worse than sexist obnoxiousness from a pundit, as offensive as that is.
If the tears of your sister, your mother, your grandmother, your daughter, your niece, your closest friend who is scared to confide her pain to you don't move you to take action, what will?
If you believe that you can take a pass on this issue without taking concrete action to support it, then make peace now with your conscience as it may not make peace with you later.
If you (unlike myself) are religious and your religious tradition uses words like "justice," this is an excellent opportunity to show atheist heathen apostate heretic infidel dirtbags like myself what justice is and why your religion protects and secures justice, fights the oppressor and opposes the sins, the crimes, the outrages that scream to the Heavens for a vengeful response. If you are an atheist, do not stand idly by while your religious next-door neighbor is doing the right thing here.
If you believe that the response of the government to a woman getting raped should be to crush her rapist, not to sentence her to 200 lashes for failing to die in the attack, then take action.
But if you are a survivor of sexual violence, predation and harassment, and you have read this far, you should feel free to tell me and this entire effort to go to Hell if that's what will take proper care of you, help you heal. You owe nothing, nothing at all, on this topic to anyone except to take care of yourself as best you can, and if this diary increased your suffering, I ask your forgiveness, and offer you my thanks.
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