Revolution #250, November 13, 2011
CALL TO ACTION
End Pornography And Patriarchy: The Enslavement And Degradation Of Women!
We are told that “equality for women has been won” and that “there are no limits to what girls can achieve.” BULLSHIT!
Every 15 seconds a woman is beaten. Every day three to four women are killed by their partners. One out of four female college students will be raped or sexually assaulted while in college.
In recent years, pornography has become increasingly violent, cruel, degrading towards women; women are referred to as “cumdumpsters” and “fuckbuckets;” the “money shot” (ejaculation in a women’s face) is standard; humiliating cruelty—like violent “ass-to-mouth” penetration—is normalized, and racist bigotry is sexualized. Meanwhile, the broader culture has been pornified: pole dancing is taught at gyms, “sexting” is a national phenomenon among teens, and the strip club is the accepted backdrop to male bonding. All this is tied in with, and reinforces, the trafficking of millions of women and girls as literal chattel in the international sex industry.
This is NOT society becoming more comfortable with sex. This is society becoming saturated with the sexualized degradation of women. If you can’t imagine sex without porn, you’re fucked.
At the same time, a Christian fundamentalist-driven assault is imperiling abortion, birth control, real sex education, and women’s lives. Doctors are killed. Women who seek abortion (a safe, necessary, and perfectly moral medical procedure)—or even birth control—are stigmatized. 2011 has seen the largest spate of legal restrictions on abortion since Roe v. Wade in 1973. Women who are not virgins or who do not choose to become mothers are shamed.
ALL THIS MUST BE STOPPED!
Women are not objects. Women are not things to be used for the sexual pleasure of men NOR are they breeders of children. WOMEN ARE HUMAN BEINGS CAPABLE OF FULL EQUALITY IN EVERY REALM!
It is long past time that this new generation stand up, reject, and RESIST this culture of rape and pornography, this culture that reduces women and girls to sexualized objects while denying their full multi-dimensional humanity (including their right— as one essential part of this—to explore and experience mutually respectful and fulfilling sexuality without shame or stigma), this culture that labels women “selfish” if they choose not to become mothers and stigmatizes them for having abortions.
- RESIST THE CULTURE OF RAPE AND PORNOGRAPHY—Join in protest at strip clubs, porn distributors, and places that profit in or celebrate the trade in women’s flesh.
- STAND UP FOR ABORTION RIGHTS—Fetuses are not babies. Women are not incubators. Abortion is not murder.
Contact stoppatriarchy@gmail.com with your questions, comments, ideas, and interest in getting involved. Get flyers to hand out, bring a speaker to your campus, ask your toughest questions. The future of women depends on YOU! stoppatriarchy.tumblr.com Check out the conversation going on on Sunsara Taylor’s blog at sunsara.blogspot.com.
Our purpose is NOT to lobby for new legislation to ban pornography (“decency laws” have always served to further repress homosexuality, boundary-challenging art, and scientific sex education). We oppose the criminalization of women in the sex industry. Our mission is to challenge the new generation in particular to reject this culture of rape and pornography, to resist the shaming of women who have sex and/or abortions, to wage fierce cultural and political resistance to put an end to pornography and patriarchy, and to bring forward a liberating culture that celebrates the full equality and liberation of women.
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