cavetocanvas: Summer Interior - Edward Hopper, 1909
(See tag: artypants)
Reblogged from marazine 2011.7.13.Wed.1200 | Tags: artypants
Problems and Solutions
THE PROBLEM:
4si4:
The Role of Women in Egypt’s RevolutionAsma’a Mahfouz, one of the young activists from the April 6 Youth Movement said in her interview with Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper that, shortly after the protests started, “I was printing and distributing leaflets in popular areas, and calling for citizens to participate. In those areas, I also talked to young people about their rights, and the need for their participation.”
Esam Al-Amin, “Anatomy of Egypt’s Revolution” (Parts 1 and 2)
She continued, “I went to a street in Bulaq Dakrur (poor Cairo neighborhood), where I and a group of members from the movement intended to start protesting. At the same time, other members were doing the same thing in other areas. When we had assembled, we raised the Egyptian flag and began to chant slogans, and it was surprising when a large number of people joined us.”
[…]
As the demonstrations continued, every day broke new ground. It started with the educated youth, both middle class and affluent. They were soon joined by the oppressed and uneducated poor. Within a few days, the protests swelled to include all segments of society, including judges, lawyers, doctors, engineers, journalists, artists, civil servants, workers, farmers, day laborers, students, home makers, the underclass and the unemployed.
[…]
[T]he Egyptian people witnessed young women like Mahfouz, Isra’a Abdel Fattah, Nawwara Nagm, and Sally Tooma Moore, not only speaking out against the brutality and illegitimacy of the regime on live television, but also leading the demonstrators in chants and camping out in Tahrir Square for weeks.
[…]
[T]he women of Egypt have played a major role in this revolution. They demonstrated in large numbers, and were essential organizers, leaders, and spokespersons during all phases of the revolution, including during the most difficult times when they came under physical attack by the security forces and thugs of the ruling party.
They posted the calls for mobilization and uploaded their video blogs on the internet. They distributed leaflets and urged their neighborhoods to protest. They were subsequently beaten, injured, and some even sacrificed their lives. They chanted and led demonstrations against the regime.
Some were doctors, working side by side with their male counterparts treating thousands of the injured in the streets. They were part of the protection and security committees, patting down female protesters to ensure their safety. In short, they were part of every important function of the revolution. …
THE SOLUTION: link
"If you believe that what people call normal sex is an act of dominance, where a man desires a woman so much that he will use force against her to express his desire, if you believe that’s romantic, that’s the truth about sexual desire, then if someone denounces force in sex it sounds like they’re denouncing sex. If conquest is your mode of understanding sexuality, and the man is supposed to be a predator, and then feminists come along and say, no, sorry, that’s using force, that’s rape - a lot of male writers have drawn the conclusion that I’m saying all sex is rape."
— Andrea Dworkin in an interview in 1997, discussing the accusations directed at her claiming she believed that ”all sex is rape” (this, of course, being completely inaccurate and a complete misrepresentation of Andrea’s work)
(Source: stumbleupon.com)
Reblogged from octagon-surgeon 2011.7.10.Sun.1200 | Tags: Andrea Dworkin
Arbitration - Part 2
Jamie Leigh Jones, 26, is one of several women who worked for KBR and former parent Halliburton Co. who say they were sexually assaulted or harassed while working for the companies in Iraq. Jones says she was raped in 2005 while working for KBR at Camp Hope, Baghdad. …
Juan A. Lozano for Associated Press, Houston Texas, June 20, 2011
When the criminal courts failed to act, her lawyers filed a civil suit, only to be met with Halliburton’s response that all her claims were to be decided in arbitration – because she’d signed away her rights to bring the company to court when she signed her employment contract. … You’ve probably done the very same thing without even knowing it. … It’s taken Jones nearly six years and a hearing in the US Senate to force her employer, Halliburton into open court.
Laura Flanders for the Guardian, June 27, 2011
See also: Arbitration - Part 1
2011.7.08.Fri.1200 | Tags: law enforcement
INDEPENDENCE DAY
“Women in large swaths of the U.S. are dying younger than they were a generation ago, reversing nearly a century of progress in public health… In 737 U.S. counties… life expectancies for women declined between 1997 and 2007. For life expectancy to decline in a developed nation is rare. Setbacks on this scale have not been seen in the U.S. since the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918, according to demographers.”
Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2011
See also: link
2011.7.04.Mon.1200 | Tags: numbers health
Camille Rowe photographed by Michael Schwartz for Black Magazine (Summer 2011). (See also: link)
Modelled
To make sense of the tumult in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the Washington establishment has made for the safe harbour of analogies. Obama applauded the transformation in the region in his May 19 speech at the State Department and then announced a $2 billion aid package to revive the region’s stalled economies. The parallel Obama drew was instructive: the new Enterprise Funds will be “modelled on funds that supported the transitions in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall”. … what the historian Marshall Goldman called the “piratisation” of Eastern Europe, with the economist Jeffrey Sachs in the lead in Poland. […] …the IMF pledged to lend $3 billion to Egypt, and the G8 promised $20 billion from the various international agencies… If you add in the U.S. promise, the total government assistance amounts to $25 billion. Such figures are a tease, but sufficient as a down payment to ensure that the U.S. and the G8 have a place at Egypt’s decision-making table.
Vijay Prashad in Counterpunch, June 17-19, 2011
2011.7.02.Sat.1200 | Tags: Thanks to Jeffrey Sachs economics
