Tag Archives: Broadblogs

Autobiography

I Made Fun of Feminists… Before My Abuse

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One of the many reasons I am a feminist – my many friends who have lived in abusive relationships.

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By Anonymous

I used to make fun of feminists because I wanted boys to like me. Back before I met a boy who abused me. Before realizing that I lived in a culture that supported my abuse, and that kept me from questioning it.

TRIGGER WARNING May be triggering for some survivors of sexual violence 

At seventeen I met my ex-boyfriend. It was small things at first. He’d put me down and laugh it off.

The first time he raped me I didn’t cry. I was numb. I asked if he realized what he’d done and he had said, matter-of-factly, “All girls get raped at some point.”

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Reblogged

Broadblogs two articles on objectification leading to suicide

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Amanda Todd

A while ago I reblogged Broadblog’s article: Objectification’s role in suicide about a young girl who had felt that suicide was her only recourse after having been stalked by a cyber-terrorist (my classification) for quite some time. From a hopeful girl, Amanda became lost to hope. All because of a cruel man who did not understand what a real man should act like.

Felicia Garcia

Sadly, Amanda is not alone in ending her life due to being objectified by men, young or old. Today Broadblogs published an article called Rape, Shaming Girls to Impress Guys. Once again men have misunderstood what being real men is all about. And once again young women are being made to suffer due to some misguided manhood ritual, this time killing Felicia Garcia. I am filled with sadness. Sadness at the thought that young women keep on having to go through sexual degradation and objectification. It is as if the fight for equality never existed.

I recognize that most guys are quite decent. I happen to be married to one. I just wish all women could be so lucky.

Reblogged

No Longer Blinded by the Right

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The world is unfair. I am lucky and live in a country where water is abundant while people in other countries die of thirst. How is that fair?

Not only that. I live in a country that thus far has been lucky enough to have harvested the income necessary to keep Norway out of the financial crisis that has hit so many other countries hard. How is that fair? While we here in Norway are doing well, people in other countries are having to move in with their parents again, losing their jobs and not able to pay their debts. How is that fair?

Even here in Norway there is plenty of unfair stuff. My children are lucky and have parents who are  well-educated and who are lucky enough to be finished with our debts. They have grown up with safe and boring parents. How can this be fair, when there are children here in Norway who live in difficult circumstances and lack the opportunities that our children have?

I have a son that struggles with Aspergers. How is that fair, when others don’t?

Life is a joke. It really is. Most of all it isn’t fair, not for anyone. We do not deserve our lives, we just have them. That is all. Luck of the draw.

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“It’s not fair that you get a free lunch when my mom has to work to pay for mine.”

That’s what I told a classmate at age 10.

In this view I was like a lot of conservatives.

In his book, Why Americans Hate Welfare, Martin Gilens found that while most want to fight poverty, many don’t like welfare, feeling the recipients are lazy and undeserving.

George Lakoff studies how language affects the mind. He says conservative morality is based on the notion that people should have “liberty to seek their self interest and their own well-being without worrying or being responsible for the well-being or interest of anybody else,” especially since — in their view — welfare fosters a “culture of dependency.”

All we need is equal opportunity, right?

Until taking a high school course taught by a conservative economist and a liberal political scientist, presenting opposing views…

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Reblogged, Young Adult

Objectification’s Role in a Suicide

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Taking care of our young should be priority one, not driving them to kill themselves.

Amanda’s stalker was a terrorist in his own right. He tortured her through his relentless stalking. Nothing she did could help her escape. While I strongly doubt it, I hope that some part of him feels at least some shame.

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More than sexual objectification was certainly involved in 15-year-old Amanda Todd’s death. But it seems to have played a role.

It all began when Amanda and a few of her middle school friends started videochatting with strangers just for fun. Some told her she was “stunning, beautiful, perfect,” a complement any 13-year-old would enjoy. Eventually, a man asked her to flash. And she did.

A year later this same guy found her and threatened to send the nude photos to her family, friends and her entire school if she didn’t “put on a show for him.” When she refused, he did.

Amanda became the laughingstock of the school and lost all of her friends. Anxiety and major depression overtook her life and she turned to drugs, alcohol and cutting to cover the pain.

She moved a couple of times, trying to get away, but her stalker always collected the names of…

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Reblogged

Come Out, Come Out Whoever You Are

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Coming out of whatever closet you are in will lessen the anxiety we feel and hasten our ability to accept ourselves for who and what we are according to psychologist Carl Rogers. I believe that people who accept who they are and who others are will be people who are able to feel true happiness in their lives.

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By John DuBois

With apologies to Glinda, I only changed one word to make a point. I’m sure she won’t mind because she’s an ally who supports equality and justice for all, gay, straight, or otherwise.

Whereas Glinda had asked the little Munchkins to come out of hiding, I ask that all future LGBT folk come out, too. Not from hiding in the bushes like the Munchkins were, but hiding from their true selves — or even from themselves.

Today more non-LGBT allies are championing us and lighting the way (thank you Lady Gaga) and we have more opportunity to express ourselves than in other times and places.

Which reminds me, a while back the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was asked how gay people in his country were treated. His response? “There are no gay people in Iran.” To which I retorted (yelling at the TV), “Yeah, as soon as…

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