From “slut” to speaker

[seabeyond]

“Your new president could be a man who stands by when a public figure tries to silence a private citizen with hateful slurs,” Fluke said tonight. “Who won’t stand up to the slurs, or to any of the extreme, bigoted voices in his own party.” In other words, Romney is Limbaugh (is Akin, is Ryan). And Barack Obama is the guy who called her up and told her she was doing a good job by defending his healthcare reform bill’s women health provisions for private insurers.

You could argue, as some critics have (even ones sympathetic to her position), that Fluke is only famous because she was attacked by misogynists. She happens to be an articulate and committed activist, but even if it was just about Limbaugh, so what? True, the right to speak up in public does not mean the right not to be criticized. But the pathetic, gleeful, spiteful ganging up on her was a teaching moment for anyone who half-believed that this was about religious liberty, not sex and sluttery.

A most amusing and telling right-wing conspiracy theory about Sandra Fluke is that the Obama administration planted her to try and fail to testify at that hearing about contraception destroying religious liberty. As the videoblogger and writer Jay Smooth pointed out at the time, it was a tacit admission from conservatives that all it would take for them to make themselves look bad was putting a young woman in front of them. Why did Democrats force them to show their cards?

In fact, 30-year-old Sandra Fluke is, more than anything else, a product of viral Internet culture. It was because the photo of the all-male panel without her was huge on Facebook; because “Stand With Sandra” raised money online; because relatively unengaged women related to Fluke, saw her as just someone speaking up for her friend who lost an ovary, her classmate who was raped. Who did everything by the books and was called a slut who needed to have sex on camera for Rush Limbaugh’s benefit anyway.

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/06/from_slut_to_speaker/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

[redqueen]

1. I really hope that things are changing.

Maybe all of this -- transvaginal ultrasounds, advocating for birth control makes you a "slut", "legitimate" rape, criticizing the portrayal of women in video games gets you harassed, posting a picture online gets you harassed, playing video games gets you harassed, being out in public gets you harassed, not looking unpuffy in pictures gets you shamed, etc etc etc ad nauseam... and not just harassment but that special kind of harassment that is targeted specifically at women (sometimes used against men but with the intent being the continued oppression of women) -- maybe now, with all of this shit just adding up and up and up... maybe now, finally, women will stop just telling themselves that this is just how the world is, and criticizing each other for not doing things differently, as if its our job to make others act like decent human beings, or shaming us for daring to have higher expectations.

Maybe now the focus will finally start to be turned toward those who keep acting like such utter, utter assholes. Maybe now we can stop pretending that its no big deal every time someone 'jokingly' reinforces the misogynist ideas that maintain and further the perception that this is just the way the world is... and start treating all of it like the hateful, bigoted bullshit it really is. Maybe now we've finally had enough.

[seabeyond]

2. women have just got to speak up, each and every time. eventaully our men will get tired of hearing

it and get it much more and recognize and they too will speak up. a ripple out. education.

[redqueen]

3. Yes, when they feel safe, it would really help to speak out

I can't expect any woman to risk her own safety speaking up against a man harassing her, if she doesn't feel safe doing so for whatever reason.

[seabeyond]

5. i agree. situations have to be accessed. i also think we need to teach our girls to speak up

that it is not a given.

i taught my boys, too, when younger. males may be encouraged thru out life to, and then tend to develop more on their own without the encouragement of parents. BUT... i wanted kids to speak up earlier, than them developing it and i took the time to teach and insist that they do. always respectfully. but, their were opinions to be argued. (2004 election in a very red city and fundamentalist beliefs). we tend to not teach our girls.

[redqueen]

7. That, I agree with. I hate the criticism though...

As in speculating that a victim of harassment was somehow inviting it or somehow caused herself to become a target. I can't help seeing that as nothing but victim blaming.

[seabeyond]

9. "somehow inviting it or somehow caused" is ALWAYS wrong. that simple. nt

[Hatchling]

4. Fluke 2024!

Just after Warren 2016!

[seabeyond]

6. we have quite a group going here, lol. throw in judd. nt

[ismnotwasm]

8. Then there were the anonymous Internet chickenshits

Who were just crazy and vile. One of the things I like about social media in these cases is that it reveals more than it hides. I post from Buzzfeed because it occasionally does some of that revealing.

While sexist assholes and outright mysogynists can find and support each other through social media, rather than say, a bar--they are no longer unchallenged, they can't run and they can't hide.


People Tweeting Hideous Things About Sandra Fluke
http://www.buzzfeed.com/scott/people-tweeting-hideous-thing-about-sandra-fluke