November 25th: International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women

On a crisp winter afternoon in December 1989 I was walking across the University of Waterloo campus to one of my final classes in honours mathematics and computer science. I was stopped by one of my female mates from the (now closed) Womyn’s Centre. She asked me “Have you heard the terrible news”? I had not. It was December 6th.

Over the past 26 years I have attended December 6th memorials, I have fundraised for the December 6th Toronto fund to help women escape violent husbands and I wrote and performed a spoken word piece in 2012 at the annual Toronto memorial event. It is perhaps the most significant day of remembrance of any kind to me. It struck a deeply personal chord as a woman studying in a traditionally male dominated field. And over the years I have heard from many other women that it struck a deeply personal chord with them too. When women hear of that type of massacre they tend to recoil. Being killed for being a woman is something that strikes too close to home for most, if not all, of us.

In 2012 I found out about the Counting Dead Women campaign that Karen Ingala Smith started in the UK. She started recording the names of all women suspected to have been killed by male violence. She tweeted regularly the names of these victims and documented them on her personal blog. As her work progressed she started tweeting and writing about the patterns she was seeing. In following her work I often thought “Canada should have something like this”. I googled and asked my fellow feminists and found out that there were some provincial iniatives but nothing nationally. Over this same time period I saw and supported the growing awareness of Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigineous Women.

At the beginning of this year, after seeing some summary info about the UK 2014 list and learning of a similar new iniative in Australia I decided that instead of asking why Canada doesn’t have anything like this I would just start doing it. And so I did.

As of this writing, there are 125 women and girls on the list for 2015. That’s 125 women and girls suspected to have been killed by male violence or 1 every 2.6 days. And the summary information I have collated looks very grim. Of the 76 solved cases (where a suspect has been charged), 54% (41) of them were killed by a current or former partner and 13% (10) were killed by their sons. I have been able to identify 22 of the 125  as aboriginal. The aboriginal population in Canada represents 3.9% of the total population. On the Counting Dead Women Canada list they represent 17.6% of the total victims. There are also inexplicable geographical differences. The population of Alberta represents 11.6% of the Canadian population yet on the CDWC list they represent 26.4% of the victims. A similar disparity occurs in Saskatchewan - they represent 8% of the victims yet their provincial population is only 3.2% of the total national population. At the beginning of the new year I intend to post more detailed summary information for all of 2015 on the NL Feminists and Allies facebook page.

I see now how the work I am doing in compiling this list is the best way I can honour not only the 14 women killed on December 6, 1989 but the unrecorded numbers of women killed globally by male violence. I do this work in the hopes that such lists will be become unnecessary. And, on the 34th anniversary of the call by Latin American and Caribbean Women to declare November 25th the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, I invite you to not only contemplate the 125 Canadian women and girls on this list for 2015 but also the 1000s of women and girls facing fatal and non fatal violence both nationally and globally. And, in order to raise national awareness of femicide on #IDEVAW, on my personal twitter account I will be tweeting the names and pictures of each victim on this year’s list. I will start at 9:00 a.m. and tweet one name every 5 minutes. As of this writing the last tweet is scheduled for 7:25 p.m.

Tools and fools

The narrative around consent, rape culture, violence against women and narcissism exploded into the Canadian stratosphere this week. Ricochets of #BeenRapedNeverReported are still being heard around the world.

The absence of one aspect in this dialogue is sitting very uneasily within me. Actually, there are a few aspects but I'll focus on just the one, for now: Sexual objectification.

It's a term that has been suspiciously avoided during this week's dialogue but it's a term that is central to the events that occurred. And it underpins much of the dialogue that is happening...both by the talking heads and the victims.

Sexual objectification: "the act of treating a person as an instrument of sexual pleasure....without regard to their personality or dignity."

This definition helps explain a lot things going on, doesn't it?

Women are merely instruments, tools, of sexual 'pleasure', see?

That is why an executive can ask a young intern if they've been used as a tool.

That is why executives can believe that texts and photo evidence of a man using a tool was 'consensual violence'.

That is why a violent man can be an unchallenged taxpayer funded spokesperson for Canadian culture despite knowing about Jian - for years.

This weeks events have not occurred in a vacuum. Anybody looking clearly around at the world today can see that our society continues to devour women. We are merely tools.

But let's not just examine the term and it's implication in this scenario. Let's also think about the term and what it means for what our notions of sexuality and sexual pleasure are in our culture.

Some feminists claim empowerment via sexual objectification. Slutwalk, anyone? These women proudly proclaim themselves as tools and put themselves in the tool box - happily and willingly. Ergo, status quo achievement: unlocked.

But other feminists are trying to get out of the tool box. They recognize that sexuality is so much more than being a tool. Sexuality is the fluid beautiful essence of what it means to be human (pun intended). It is an act that fully engages your body, heart and mind. It is not a mechanical tool. And it does not involve violence. Ever. There should be nothing 'pleasurable' about using a tool to orgasm. If it is reduced to that then the full experience of sexuality and what it means to be a human being is erased. And if you don't believe me and my sisters on this then maybe this man will help you understand the concept of physically and emotionally safe sex better.

If our society continues to be directed by those that orgasm using tools then we are all fools for continuing to allow it. After all, tools can't report themselves as broken.

Howling

Today the wind is gathering momentum outside my saltbox by the sea. It is expected to crest to upwards of 100 km/hr. AGAIN.

It is a metaphor for the myriad of emotions I feel while reading and listening to tales of women's oppression. And as you likely know, it's everywhere.

I met with two women in town for lunch this week. We had all just attended a rally to protest the closure of the Family Violence Intervention Court here in my new home province of Newfoundland. This court, opened by the current government in 2009 was closed last year. The budgetary savings of a mere $500,000 (only 0.02% of the entire provincial budget) was deemed too much to improve and save the lives of women. A province with the highest rates of domestic violence in Canada closed the only program offering real solutions to families facing the horrors of domestic violence. It is beyond shameful and should be criminal.

At our lunch the three of us shared part of our own stories of domestic violence. We agreed it is the shame that weighed heaviest upon us and nearly crushed all of us. And the fact is that domestic violence does crush some of us. Five women in Newfoundland were murdered by their partners in 2012. Five women literally crushed out of existence by five violent men. 

So yes, I'm howling today. And the backdrop of the raging wind is providing a poignant metaphor for the way so many of us women feel whilst desperately battling the shackles of oppression in our town, our province, our nation, and our world.

Womyn Warriors: Seeking to actually liberate women

Exactly one week ago I approached a small group of womyn standing outside Beaver Hall Gallery.  I expected to see hate accusing protesters and was relieved by their absence. I was committed to attending the first ever Toronto Radical Feminist conference and the weekend was going to be my first experience in nearly three decades of face to face discussions and speakers about women's issues such as violence, reproductive justice and human trafficking in a womyn's only setting.  As I sit here writing this I can not comprehend how little I knew last Friday morning about the state of oppression towards women on this planet. It was like I was in a bubble and now it has been burst.

It was a smaller gathering than expected because of the threats of violence faced by the organizer's and the venue. Women get scared. Systemic oppression does that. Rape victims don't want to be triggered. Exited sex workers don't want to be outed. For conference attendees who brought children there was a feeling of enormous guilt about exposing their offspring to possible violence. All of us are still processing this ugly side of our event. Here is a short description by one fellow attendee. Here is another attendee's writeup.

Last fall I met a young man who lived in Yugoslavia during the country's breakup. His family eventually refugeed to Canada. He discussed his childhood back in a land under war. His recollection, as a child, was that of many family members being around and supporting one another. He had siblings and cousins about all the time. They played while the parents pulled together to survive. These are his happy childhood memories and he spoke of this fondly. In his new country families are disjoint: including his own. His story comes back to me as I try and capture the experience I had last weekend. Because that's ultimately how I will remember this gathering. An infant played while the womyn pulled together to work towards liberation.

But make no mistakes about it: we were terrrorized. Anyone dismissive of that reality for a group of a couple of dozen women is oppressing my reality. You were not there.  You did not live through what we experienced.  And while we were terrorized we managed to listen to many speakers from all across Turtle Island tell us about the state of oppression towards women:  in this country and around the world.  The facts are frightening. From toxic/rape/porn culture that leads to youth suicide to human sex trafficking that the pornstitution is behind. Aboriginal women and the Pickton house of horrors. The centuries long ongoing process of eroding womyn's reproductive justice. History lessons that revealed the true sources of any societal change that has occurred in the last few hundred years. And finally, actionable items that will help mobilize a few more womyn that are actually interested in liberating women rather than mere empowerment.

In the course of our baptism into radical feminism we forged bonds through personal stories and sharing of insights. And I had many tears. Tears of rage when hearing of a mother dropping off her own daughter and grandchild to a homeless shelter because the mother's boyfriend was inconvenienced by the baby. Tears of horror when hearing of torture survivors struggling to communicate their story with drawings: they can not talk of it. Tears that were triggered when I saw, for the first time,  how thoroughly patriarchy had brainwashed me into the liberal feminist narrative and how damaging that might have been for newly adult Daughter. Tears for the direct violence I experienced in my own life yet did not clearly recognize until last weekend. Tears of gratitude that a group of womyn continually risk their safety so that womyn like myself can learn more.

Yes I cried a lot. And if you are not crying about the continuing state of oppression of women in our world then I really think we can no longer be friends.  There is a war on women. I've chosen to work towards liberation.

Nigerian dwarf goats: also discussed at RadFemRiseUp
(to be explained later)