This is extremely triggering, particularly the pictures at the bottom of the article.
I don’t know what to say; I don’t know what to do.
This is what we mean when we refer to the war on women.
July 10, 2006
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Looked at the article and briefly at the pictures and had to click them off – don’t know whether that’s a natural reaction or just not being brave enough…I can’t agree strongly enough with your publicising this and your comments. Hard to see how anyone could disagree.
I do want to think about the logic in the argument that by casting something as ‘just porn’ THEY hope to convince us it therefore doesn’t matter (hope that’s a fair summary). I don’t think that’s what THEY are trying to do. I think their denial strategy (and I’m not saying I agree with it) is rather that its presence on a website for ‘titillation’ where other items may be faked makes it possible it also has been faked.
But that surely is a hairsplit – THEY are still trying to deny rape just as THEY are denying other atrocities perpetrated by the US and UK foreign policy in the name of peace – some directly agaianst women some agianst the whole population and the more we can shout to Blair that we must not be part of this the more chance somebody somehwere will get the message.
This is a war against women, but it is a war aginst Muslims and against people who want the right to make decisions themselves about their own lives.
Comment by simplywondered — July 10, 2006 @ 10:09 am
SW, you don’t seem to understand. You seem to think that a discussion around the ‘authenticity’ of the pictures is a worthwhile one. You seem to think that this is about the war on Iraq. You need to understand that, as a man, you know either nothing or very little about what oppression is like for women.
Comment by Ylva — July 10, 2006 @ 11:43 am
Rape of the Hadji Girl, Part IV, On Death Threats, Also, a Question for Men Who Identify as Allies to Feminists
So, I have a question.
The following blogs, that I know of, have linked to the articles here, or have blogged about the rape of ‘Abir Hamzah themselves: Den of the Biting Beaver, Sinister Girl, I’m Not a Feminist But, Capitalism Bad,…
Trackback by Women's Space/The Margins — July 12, 2006 @ 4:25 pm
little late getting back here, Ylva. I certainly do think it important to identify the strategies THEY use to try and deny what is actually going on; for me, to understand the attitude and approach of those with whom I fundamentally disagree and who by their actions make the world I share with them a bit worse is very illuminating. I don’t think it’s critical whether these particular pictures are genuine or otherwise; that’s why I wrote that it was a ‘hairsplit’ (if such a word exists) I believe without the need for photographic evidence that this happens. Indeed I do think it is about the war on Iraq – perhaps it was confusing that the word ‘also’ didn’t appear in the last sentence of my post. I think the war on Iraq is a separate but connected war from a (for me) harder to define war on women. I believe all these wars diminish all of us. And yes I agree that I know ‘either nothing or very little about what oppression is like for women’. Still got a viewpoint and critical faculties, though, and I know what I believe to be right and wrong. And without trying to claim knowledge of your head, it doesn’t seem that our views are a million miles apart.
Comment by simplywondered — July 24, 2006 @ 7:21 am