From StopPatriarchy.org:

STOP ROMANTICIZING WOMEN’S ENSLAVEMENT!
START FIGHTING FOR WOMEN’S LIBERATION!

Updated February 12, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On Valentine’s Day, couples and friends across the country will go to see the movie based on the bestseller, Fifty Shades of Grey. This is NO GOOD; in fact it’s real bad. Fifty Shades of Grey is a tale of stalking, domestic violence, abuse, and torture, dressed up like a love story! Fuck that.

Around the world: An epidemic of rape, gang-rape, "date" rape, rape porn, rape culture, is on the rise. Still with us and/or making a huge comeback: “honor” killings, acid attacks, genital mutilation, murder, forced motherhood (denying women the choice of abortion), forced sterilization (denying women the ability to get pregnant), forced marriages, coercion of every kind imaginable. All this, along with sexual harassment, sexual violence, sexual exploitation, and sexual stigma teach women “their place.” The women of the world are already wearing the blood-soaked ropes and chains of patriarchy—so let’s break them off, not slap new ones on!

Every single day, a multi-billion dollar industry of violent and degrading porn is saturating boys and men with the notion that the torture of women is arousing. Now, Fifty Shades of Grey is a big part of selling that lie to women. Fuck that.

In this society where women are still shamed for having or enjoying sex, Fifty Shades of Grey might look “edgy” and “rebellious.” It is right to rebel against sexual repression, to fight the cult of "purity" and virginity that is pushed on women and girls, and to ferociously defend women's right to abortion and birth control. But let's be clear: Fifty Shades is NOT a rebellion against any of this! It is a distorted house-of-mirrors reflection of the same patriarchal view of women that created those repressive sexual “norms” and rigid gender roles. There is no fundamental difference between the Christian fascists who want to reduce women to objects who breed children for men and the Christian Greys who want to reduce women to sex objects to be used and abused for male sexual pleasure. There is NOTHING rebellious about men controlling, owning, and terrorizing women, or the lie that women should feel “liberated” by submitting to this. Fuck that.

Women are not toys to be used for male pleasure, nor are they breeders of children. The domination of women is only “sexy” in a society that accepts women being bought, sold, owned, and controlled. Fuck that.

IT MATTERS if this premiere, and its blatant mainstreaming of rape culture and revenge against women is accepted or rejected. Get off this shit! Take up the fight for women’s actual liberation! Say NO MORE to patriarchy in all its forms! Dare to imagine—and fight to CREATE—a world without rape, without sex trafficking, without domestic violence, without the sexual sadism of pornography or the misogyny of theocratic Puritans. Women are full human beings, capable of participating fully and equally in every realm of human endeavor together with men. That is what we should set our sights on. That is what we must fight to make real.

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