WOMEN’S DAY UNUSEFUL

“Do we really think that, against violence, it is enough to change your profile photo or put on some red shoes or write something today and then keep making notches on the wall? If you don’t know what it means to have been injured in the body and / or soul, ask those who know and listen, just listen. If you want to do something concrete, reach out your hand once, even just once, to those who carry those wounds, indelible, hidden under their clothes, so that no one points the finger, no one judges, no one hypothesizes “something, however, must have done … ”Or to anyone who wears them like scars of war because somehow she managed to get out of them and screams it to the world so that the world begins to listen. There is no need for symbolic actions. There is a need for actions, period: with your hands, thoughts, words, but they are useful for something. It would be enough to change the paradigm with which everyone, no one excluded and especially us women, talk about other women. Because a person can be unpleasant to us, he can also be a bitch, but sexism is another thing and reveals itself between the syllables and hurts. I this change, this rolling up thoughts to express ourselves better and with greater awareness, this taking a word back to put it as it should be said, frankly I don’t see it. So fuck the profile pictures and the red shoes and the phrases of circumstance and the empty words when they’re not sharpened to hurt. I want words full: of senses, of actions, of change, of conscience, above all of conscience. Otherwise, talk about Christmas and leave us alone. “

IF THERE ARE WOMEN

Since I was a child I have never suffered from the lyrics of Ruggeri's song sung by Mannoia. It tells of fragile women, at the mercy of selfish and superficial men, suffering women who do not rebel, who do not react, who mask the pain and let themselves be conquered by letters and roses (chocolates are missing, but perhaps only because they do not rhymes). They are resigned, sad and melancholy women, who seem to live in dreams that will never come true. They hide ... but from what? They don't seem to be in charge of their own life, they wait, they are always saying "yes" (!), But why?


No, no, women are not that, at least not all of them, thankfully!

Some women may be complicated, but only for those who think they need to understand them. They are women who should be lived as an experience, like flowing water or warming sun. Trying to grab them and make them your own would be like holding a universe in your hands.

There are women who do not need a man to be happy, they are women capable of sharing their sadness but also of welcoming into their own happiness.


I would like to talk about women, those with a disruptive personality, involving and enthralling at the limits of rationality. Those who, only by being themselves, when they enter a life upset every parameter.
Unpredictable, stubborn and passionate, they often frighten, force you to come to terms with yourself and upset every certainty. It is not easy to stay close to her, many prefer the comfort of more predictable people. Even if overwhelming, even if intrusive, even if harmful. Because boredom, intolerance, sadness, sometimes even pain, if trivial and known, appear less frightening than uncertainty and living life as an adventure.
Sometimes, however, there are also those who realize the good fortune of having met one of these wild and fascinating creatures. "Simply complicated", I would say, but alive and capable of loving. Really love.

Anyone who understands this knows what could be missed by letting them go.
Whoever manages to find courage and self-confidence leaves with them, without looking back.

HOW THEY CREATE A BAD MAN

Women are poor wretches. Some, in order not to be victims, become harpies, sour, evil. But it is always the consequence of wrong loves, destructive loves, negative loves. Every little girl is born and grows up thinking that love is the solution for her life. A little girl who always hears her parents arguing then gives birth to a child who hears her mother arguing with her father. The son thinks that love is destructive and negative and thinks that women cause trouble because the father says hurtful things to the mother. Stress, boredom, frustration, and many other negative situations create a very dysfunctional environment and the child believes that this hell is normal when you are with a woman. So he thinks that the father is right and that women are evil. The child begins to believe that it is better to be alone because fue people together are hell. The child believes that his love is a fatal disease. He wants to stay away from it. It grows and rejects maternal love. Reject women. He doesn't want to end up like his father. The father and mother continue to scream. Then turn up the volume on the TV, he doesn't want to hear them. Turn up the music volume. He doesn't want to hear them. The child would like to disappear because it would be better to live without parents because the mother and the mother live in hell and hell is not a good thing. The child becomes a man and cannot love women because in his mind there are the words of the father, words that devalue the mother. The mother is still crying. The sky shows the stars but no one sees them. The sky shows the clouds but the child does not see them. The sky shows the sun but the child-man does not look at it. He feels dead. Life is dead love. The child wants to leave. He wants to disappear. The child-man wants to get rid of his mother and father. They are the monsters. They are the real monsters. The child hates them because they always fight. The sky is full of stars. Useless stars that the child looks at every night. But they stay up there. And he remains dead.

WOMENS RIGHTS

TURKISH WOMEN ARE IN DANGER

Women’s lives in Turkey are in danger. 
Yesterday, Turkey withdraw from the Istanbul Convention. Istanbul Convention is a human rights treaty to combat & prevent violence against women and domestic abuse in general. Turkey reports 1 femicide per day. This means withdrawing from that treaty is literally giving the women no guarantee of safety at all. 
In 2019 alone, 474 women were brutally killed in gender-based violence. In 2020, with the lockdown, the number was 409. Again, with the Covid-19 lockdown, the number for 2021 is expected to be higher. Turkey’s legal system, by not giving these murderers their deserved sentences, legitimizes and normalizes violence against women. Men are often given reduces sentences after they claim to have acted on impulse or claim to be religious and dress smartly in court. And ironically, when groups of countless women tried to protest against it, they have been faced with police brutality.
Violence against women and the so-called “honor” killings are deeply rooted and widespread issues in Turkey. According to several studies, 42% of Turkish women aged between 14-60 have experienced some kind of physical or sexual violence by their husbands, boyfriends, or even strangers.
The government, instead of trying to stop this, is now backing up from the Istanbul Convention. 
Istanbul Convention saves lives. Violence against women is political.  Femicides are political.
We need your help. Women in Turkey need your help. This is serious.
You can help us by signing these petitions: here, here, and you can find more here.
You can learn more about the issue here.
Or, the least you can do, wherever you are, is to spread awareness. 
Women’s rights are human rights. Istanbul Convention saves lives. Violence against women is political. Femicides are political.

“NO” MEANS REALLY “NO”

ABORIGENAL WOMEN

image description: a woman with pink hair and a black jacket walking down a Halifax street. The picture is taken from behind and she is holding a sign above her head which reads “Justice for missing and murdered aboriginal women.” / end of description ]

MASS MEDIA TALKING ABOUT FEMALE MURDERS

The medias always like to make some “funny” headlines about men killing women. The murder of women is entertainment. In doing so they are also choosing to validate the man’s “reason” for killing the woman : of course the woman wasn’t killed for cooking a bad meal, she was killed because of misogyny, but the “journalist” spontaneously decides to be the murderer’s spokesman. Usually the article will also talk about the man’s drinking habit, having lost his job, owing money or being depressed which doesn’t justify the murder of a woman in any way of course ; they are repeating the murderer and his attorney’s excuses and choosing his side by default. Usually the article will also display a happy picture of the couple (unless the man isn’t white) and explain that he’s just a nice a guy who made a mistake. When asked, everybody will say they were a happy couple and nothing could have predicted this outcome. The woman would tell a very different story if she could. But she can’t.  Men abuse women before they kill them. And they kill women because women are their properties and must not ever be free of their owner. So a man will kill a woman who wants to leave him or a woman he wants to leave to make sure she belongs to him till the end. He’d rather kill his whole family rather than lose ownership. The article will probably mention the man’s convenient failed attempt at committing suicide. Poor nice guy. Anyway, we have funny headlines to make.

BLACK TRANS WOMEN ARE STILL DYING

The Pride that we celebrate today originated from the infamous Stonewall Riots. The Stonewall Inn, still in New York City’s Greenwich Village, was home to groups of queer and transgender folks normally prohibited from any other establishment. Bars that served queer and gender non-conforming customers faced denial of liquor licenses, so police regularly raided bars that welcomed these communities.
On June 28, 1969, the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn, asking customers for ID and arresting them if they could not provide adequate identification. For trans and gender non-conforming bar goers whose sex on their IDs seemed incompatible with their gendered presentation, police automatically condemned them for identity theft or sodomy. Officers then forced these folks to strip and reveal their sex assigned at birth, only to arrest them if their genitals seemed to contradict their gender presentation.
Police systematically disregarded the fact that gender and genitals do not go hand in hand, and many people continue to disregard this fact.
The graphic below, the Gender Unicorn, can help us better understand the spectrum of masculinities and femininities in the western world.

via Trans Student Educational Resources
The exploitative physical, sexual and psychological assault of people who aren’t heterosexual cisgender men or cisgender women is rooted in the gender-sex binary. The gender-sex binary is the social construct that people born with penises must embrace hyper-masculinity and adopt the category ‘man’, while people born with vulvas must embrace hyper-femininity and adopt the category ‘woman.’ It is safe to say that the vast majority of people born in the West are marked with a binary gender identity before they are even born.
The gender-sex binary is oppressive to queer, trans and gender non-conforming people, and those who are not white are pushed even further to the margin.
From the beginning of colonialism, to the Stonewall Riots, to present day — transgender people and Black people face denial of their right to be recognized as fully human within this system.
When the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn, queer folks stood their ground. In response to this violent exploitation of power rooted in the fear of non-normativity, they threw coins and broken bottles at officers and a riot quickly ensued. Marsha P. Johnson, a Black transfeminine drag queen, and Sylvia Rivera, a transfeminine Latina, have gone down in history as playing a primary role in these riots and in New York City’s gay liberation movement. In Rivera’s honor, Dean Spade founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, an organization that primarily provides legal services to marginalized LGBTQI+ folks of color.
If these women, and many more, were key in LGBTQI+ liberation, why do Pride campaigns and events today center privileged, white, gay cisgender men?
Why is the life expectancy of Black and brown trans women in the U.S. just 35 years old?
Why were five Black transgender women brutally murdered in the few short months of 2019?
On May 18th, a Black transgender woman named Muhlaysia Booker was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas at only 23 years old. According to her Facebook page, Muhalysia worked as an entertainer and was a student at Louisiana State University. In April of 2019, Muhlaysia was violently beaten on video by a cisgender Black man while others egged on the assault. This video went viral on social media. She attended a rally the week after her assault to highlight the trend of violence women like her consistently face.
Michelle “Tamika” Washington, 40, another Black transgender woman, was killed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania the day after Muhlaysia’s murder. According to her Facebook page, Tamika was a student who studied nursing at the Community College of Philadelphia.
The reality is that Black and brown trans people, especially transgender women, face the highest rates of murder in the United States today. The world watched while Muhlaysia’s life was threatened, and we failed to protect her. Due to misgendering in police reports and unreported murders, there are likely several others who were lynched this year at the hands of hatred and bigotry. And yet, they are rarely given the proper light during the month of June.
This Pride season, I ask you to honor those who led the queer liberation movement and uplift those without access to care and safety. Have conversations with your families and friends, humanize those at the margin, and donate directly to those asking for help. Help Black trans women survive. Pay for their transportation, donate to their education, and offer items that contribute to the means of survival. Much of this can be done by donating to and sharing their online fundraisers, directly buying art or clothes, and connecting them with childcare, health care and job opportunities.
As you celebrate Pride this month, revisit the reasons Pride began, honor those we have lost, and make a pledge to uplift the most marginalized.

REST IN PEACE