Documented

So this weekend I had more free time than usual (I think I'm finally like not actively "moving" anymore!) and it's spring break here at the university so our workweek is a bit lighter, and so of course I spent it on my couch. I did also ride my bike all over town (to work! Like a real Davis resident!) so technically I just spent like...a lot of time on my couch.

Fortunately, the focus on my passion planner this week is "L E A R N" and my to-do list includes "use that brain for excellence, girl" and so the time on my couch was only like 1% March Madness, #OnWisconsin. I dug into the long list of documentaries that have been piling up on my Netflix queue. [PS! Somewhere along the line they changed it to say "My List" instead of "Queue" and I find that to be very uninteresting.]

I started almost embarrassingly with two films that I should have watched a few years ago when they were new but have somehow just never gotten around to because I am terrible. But now I am less terrible because I have viewed and loved them and learned from them!


This was so fascinating. It features impressive women from multiple generations of feminism and leadership in media, politics, and education. It discouraged me--tragic statistics about young girls, in particular--but encouraged me, as I think about what I am capable of and what we are capable of. Watch it.

The Invisible War

This made me weep. It is absolutely deserving of its Academy Award nomination. The infamy of sexual assault in the US military has been front and center for a while now; I'm hopeful that we will not continue to let our veterans down. Watch it.

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I had on my queue the famous miniseries documentary Half the Sky, and I watched about a half hour of it before I started to feel...icky. It has a lot of red flag "white savior" things going on. I read Nick Kristof's columns, usually, and I think that he and Cheryl WuDunn (his wife and colleague) do excellent work to raise awareness and bring human trafficking to the global stage. And so I want them to keep working, because I want women to be liberated around the world. But I don't want the Western world to believe that homogenized brown women are liberated by white men. I've been told to read this book (by great white women I love) a number of times, and have just always felt...icky. If you don't know anything about human trafficking, watch this. If you want to learn more, find sources written/produced/headquartered outside the white, Western world. And then share those with me.

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Werner Herzog is weird, and I have a weird fascination with media about prison/crime (my favorite book is Truman Capote's In Cold Blood) and so I saw this on a "best docs on netflix" list sometime ago and grabbed it. It was weird. It's the story of two men who were convicted of murder--one sentenced to death, one to life imprisonment. Herzog talks to their families, mostly, and there are these silences and staring...it's haunting and it feels very real. Maybe don't watch it.

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Makers: Women Who Make America

This was a three-part PBS miniseries documentary situation, and I watched all three back-to-back because it's CRAZMAZING (as the great April Ludgate-Dwyer might say). I learned so much about the history of feminism in the United States, for better and for worse. There's so much more to learn (my favorite thing to learn!) and I am scouring the universe for more rad women's stories. I think this documentary is reasonably self-aware about its limitations as far as inclusion of women of color, gay women, transwomen, etc., as it moves through how the movement itself addressed the wide variety of American women. We can always do better. So many of my heroes are on film here (HRC, Sanda Day O'Connor, RBG, Gloria Steinem) and so many women whose legacy I didn't even know I was made of. Watch 'em all.

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This blog doesn't have a whole lot of "engagement" going on, but I am all about the crowd-source, so,  let me know what great documentaries you've been watching--or books you've been reading, let's be real--about subjects that bring you to life. 

#YesAllWomen

I've been a little busy (you know, graduating from seminary) and so I haven't been here, addressing all the things that have caught my attention in the last few months. My newfound freedom (this week has already been sprinkled with "what now?" and "I think I'm bored" more than once) allows for some words on #YesAllWomen, and what that has to do with me.

I've been mulling over just how I want to talk about it, and a lot of that has to do with how everyone else has chosen to talk about it. If you've been on the internet in the last week, you've seen a lot more think pieces about misogyny than you're used to (unless you're me and you follow feminist writers who rarely put down the subject). You've seen the responses from men and women in support and in opposition. I don't really want to give you the scoop on who thought it was great and who thought it was stupid--you have the rest of the internet for that information. What I want to tell you is how I experienced it. Because this is my blog and that's what I do here.

On Saturday night (5/24) I crawled into bed after a wonderfully busy day of graduating and celebrating. I checked Facebook and Instagram to like some more of my classmates' pictures, and then perused twitter to see what had gone on that day, since I'd been largely absent. My feed was full of tweets and retweets tagged #YesAllWomen, sharing stories of harassment and trauma and the added terror of never being heard.

Women empowered each other to tell the world just what it is that we suffer day in and day out. We talked about everyday street harassment: catcalls, demands for smiles, lewd gestures, being followed, additional harassment for refusing advances. We talked about bars: unwanted chatter, drinks that demand something in return, being anonymously groped, additional harassment for refusing advances. We talked about dates: fear of the semi-stranger we'd agreed to meet, escape plans, "got home safe" text messages.

We talked about things like the number of men who hadn't called us for a third date after we'd said "no" to sex on the second. We talked about male friends who regularly use "rape" in sentences that are not about rape. We talked about male friends who think catcalls are compliments. We talked about talking to our friends and partners about our experiences, and about their less-than-thoughtful responses. We talked about how we hadn't necessarily thought about all of these things as misogyny before, but recognized the implications that our bodies were something to which those men felt entitled, and their ability to brush off our worst fears.

In addition, of course, to talking about all of our fears, we talked about why we have these fears in the first place. We talked about stranger rape, and date rape, and partner rape. We talked about intimate partner violence of all kinds. We talked about being attacked on the street and having onlookers literally look on. We talked about stalkers and about police departments who couldn't help until there was a crime committed.

The point is that we talked. We learned more about each other, we learned more about our common lives, we learned more about how to talk to children and adults about the realities of violence. I learned about how common my experiences (and the experiences of my friends) have been. It's hard to explain how gross it feels to feel lucky that I have never been raped. It's a little bit grosser to debate with myself about putting a "yet" in that sentence.

If you're male, think about the ways in which your behavior could be perceived as scary to women. If you can't think of any examples, ask a female friend or your female partner, if you have one. She may love you, but she can probably think of one. And when she next tells you about the harassment she received on her way to your house, worry about that. And when you're next with your male friends and one of them says or does something you think even borders on sexism or misogyny or harassment, say so. That's what it takes.

If you haven't spent time in the #YesAllWomen hashtag, mosey on over and read for yourself what's up. Think about the ways in which you interact with your fellow humans. I know, right? That's really all I'm asking.

There's been a lot happening with regard to rape in our world, lately. It's been a fascinating and disgusting public debate and I have been struggling to decide what my two cents are and if they're worth adding to the cacophony. But it comes down to the fact that crying out in public against rape and against the public perception of rape is, at present, the only defense we've got. 

So. 

There was this gang rape in India in January, and then another earlier this week. The nation is looking at harsher punishments for perpetrators of rape. 

Then there was the incredible documentary The Invisible War, a story about which I heard on NPR this morning. This documentary looks at the incredible patterns of sexual assault in the US military.

On Monday, we heard the guilty verdict in the Steubenville, OH case of two high school boys who raped a female classmate after she was drunk to the point of unconsciousness.

There are no cases of rape that are not tragic.

The way that we as a nation and world respond to these instances, though, is what has been very painful this week. You've probably seen a bunch of stories about how CNN sympathized with the rapists and how plenty of Americans  lashed out at the victim, too.

What drives me up a wall in these instances is that the rape culture in which we live allows for us to place blame on these women/girls for the deplorable actions taken by these men/boys. That the "education" initiatives surrounding rape are victim-centered rather than perpetrator-centered. We teach our young girls that rape is practically inevitable (which is hard to argue with, as 1 in 6 women have been sexually assaulted).

What we're not teaching our young people is to respect themselves and to respect one another, and to value each others' lives. In this Steubenville case in particular, the terrifying reality is that these boys did not understand completely that what they were doing was illegal or wrong or even that it was rape. They and countless other teenage boys across this nation do not understand that the bodies of their female friends/classmates/neighbors/etc do not belong to them. 

Yes, for all of us avid Law and Order: SVU watchers, there are serial rapists out there who are violent criminals whose problems are larger than these. But there are plenty of date rapists and spousal rapists and rapists like these boys who are not convinced that anything they have done is wrong. 

This must stop. 

It seems absolutely insane to have to keep repeating that any non-consenual sexual activity is rape. And that anyone who has not said "yes" has, therefore, not consented. And that anyone who is physically incapable of saying "yes" has, therefore, not consented. And that what someone is wearing or how much someone has had to drink has no bearing on their consent. And that someone who has said "yes" before (like a partner or spouse) does not automatically consent in all times and all places.

It just doesn't seem that complicated to me.

If you want to read some very passionate responses to our dear nation's epidemic of rape, check out my two favorites from this week:



And then don't rape anyone. And then don't let anyone get away with raping anyone. And then never stop talking about rape culture. And then teach your children not to be rapists. Cool. Thanks.