EVERYDAY SEXISM & WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WOMEN FIGHT BACK!

 
I guess I'm going to start off this post with a little story of my own involving everyday sexism. I've been on this writing journey in which I wrote a book, and it's in the process of being edited. When I meet new people who ask me what I do or people whom I haven't seen in awhile ask me what I've been up to, I tell them that I'm writing and working on this book project. So far, after I tell them that I wrote a book, I've had two men respond with this exact phrase: What could YOU possibly have to say? Said in a really derogatory way. Because we all know women should be seen not heard, except in all those cases when they also shouldn't be seen! With that being said, everyone else I've told about it, both women and men have been super excited, curious, and express interest in wanting to read it.

I've complied a group of some really great articles that are all about women standing up and fighting back against sexism. The first few articles are about what we as women are up against. Keep in mind, while reading these articles that the fact these articles exist in the first place, and that there's websites set up by women to talk about these issues is a HUGE success. I remember when I started blogging a few years ago I couldn't even find enough content for my site, and now there's so much of it everywhere that I can't keep up. Women and girls demanding that our voices are being heard and our stories are being told, is a huge step in us fighting back, and it's very quickly helping the patriarchy to collapse.

"I went to a small magnet arts high school where the most hyper-masculine guys were dance majors. The guys at Carolina display a different kind of masculinity. They sit outside their frat houses and stare at girls as they walk by. Guys yell things too crude to repost here at my friends and I at night. If I raise my hand half as many times as a guy in class, I'll learn that he talk about how "intense" I am to the rest of the class.

Rape feels like it's everywhere here. I'm sure it's everywhere at most universities. I know that it is not just Carolina, but there are still days when it is everywhere for me. It's in every bathroom stall, on the flier that says "have you or someone you know experience sexual assault?" and all I can do is mentally list all the people I know who are survivors of sexual assault. It's a long list."

http://www.sparksummit.com/2013/11/06/rape-culture-shock/

"Sexism is the dismissal of all of this as trivial. It’s being silenced by a patriarchy and told that none of this matters."

http://feminspire.com/this-is-what-sexism-looks-like/

This next group has to do with Facebook. The first article is about how they have allowed violence and hate against women to exist on their site, and about women standing up and fighting back.

"Because Facebook has been failing to protect its users from this hateful content, Trista Hendren decided to take Facebook's misogyny problem under her own hands. She created Rapebook- a watchdog group whose role was to scan and flag website for abusive content.....

In a statement, Rapebook administrators explained that Facebook's subjective policy is so biased, that it allows content promoting violence against women while deliberately removing feminist activism."

http://www.policymic.com/articles/33621/why-facebook-needs-to-lean-in-and-fix-its-woman-problem

This next article is a continuation of that. After this first group of women started leading a battle against fb's misogyny, and were pretty much silenced, a much larger movement which was inspired by the first group of women, then took place about a month later, with a lot of success.

"Facebook on Tuesday acknowledged that its systems to identify and remove hate speech had not worked effectively, as it faced pressure from feminist groups that want the site to ban pages that glorify violence against women.

The activists, who sent more than 5,000 e-mails to Facebook's advertisers and elicited more than 60,000 posts on Twitter, also prompted Nissan and more than a dozen smaller companies to say that they would withdraw advertising from the site....

A petition on the site change.org had almost 224,000 supporters by Tuesday evening."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/business/media/facebook-says-it-failed-to-stop-misogynous-pages.html?_r=1&

Then a few months later, I read this article. Which made me feel like all of this pressure that women's rights groups put on them, was finally getting through to them. That they were feeling the pressure to start addressing the needs of their female users.

"Facebook has launched a privacy guide aimed specifically at survivors of domestic violence, explaining content controls that will allow users to connect with friends and family while minimizing the risk of jeopardizing their safety or being exposed to an abusive partner."

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/02/facebook_launches_privacy_guide_for_survivors_of_domestic_violence/

This last article is about Feminists who are fighting all over the world, and how their courage is contaigous!

"It's too early to say whether the mood of mutiny will last. When people fight misogyny, they aren't just fighting governments and police forces, religious organisations and strangers in the streets - they also have to deal with intolerance from their loved ones, from their colleagues, from friends and family members who can't or won't understand. Over the last few weeks I have been humbled by the bravery of the activist I've met, particularly the women. It takes a special sort of courage to cast off shame, to risk not just violence but also intimate rejection for the sake of a better future. And the thing about courage is that it's contagious."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/13/new-feminism-defying-shame