mind body mama: stomped & hollered

A long time ago, before I caught a pale version of the plague that took down the mother of Small's sweet friend Ted, before the freak October snowstorm that landed us in the dark for most of a week, I spoke at Stomp and Holler, aka the walk previously known as Slut. 

This is what I said:  

The fabulous Jaz Tupelo took this video.  That cutie with the great hair helping me out?  That's Jender.  She's my partner in crime, the one I want on my team when the Zombies come.  You can read more about our collaborations here.

This is what the text of my speech said, though I dropped my own best line in delivery:

My name is Lynne Marie Wanamaker and I’m here because I believe that freedom from sexual violence is a right and not a privilege.

So long as we live in a world where some of us are at disproportionate risk of violence—women and girls, transwomen, sex workers, women of color—so long as some of us are at greater risk of violence than others, our society does not enjoy the right of safety equally.

And so long as I have to live in this world—and raise a daughter in this world—where one in six women will face attempted or completed rape in her lifetime—then I will consider self-defense a basic life skill for those of us under attack.

Because if we cannot anticipate safety in our homes, our schools, our workplaces and our public spaces—if, in fact, our lack of safety is normalized a minimized and excused, and we are blamed for the attacks we suffer—then we will find a means by which to defend ourselves.

Because the truth is that those of us under attack practice self-defense every day.  We must.  It is a matter of our survival.

I want to see by a show of hands if this is true for you or for someone you love:

If you have ever used your mind to protect yourself.  If you have ever planned for your safety—asked someone to walk you to your car, gotten a ride from campus security so you would not have to walk alone across a dark campus.  If you have ever locked your doors and windows, if you have brought your dog with you when you go hiking in the woods.  If you have ever heard footsteps coming up behind you and thought of what you would do if it was someone e who wanted to hurt you.  If you have ever trusted your instincts about whether or not a person or situation was dangerous to you.  If you or someone you know has ever used your mind to keep yourself safe: Raise your hand.

If you or someone you know has ever used your voice to protect yourself.  If you have ever spoken out against injustice.  If you have ever yelled for help.  If you have ever used your voice to give enthusiastic consent for a desired sex act.  If you have ever used your voice to give an unequivocal NO to unwanted touch.  If this is true for you or for someone you know—If you have used your voice to protect yourself: Raise your hand.

If you or someone you know has created distance between themselves and danger, raise your hand.  If you have terminated a relationship with someone who controlled, threatened, intimidated or abused you.  If you avoided a person or location that you thought would be dangerous to you. If you ran away from someone who tried to assault you.  If this is true for you or someone you know: Raise your hand.

If you or someone you know fought back.  If you kicked and hit and elbowed and gouged and spit and scratched and stomped and bit. If you or someone you know fought back in body and spirit: Raise your hand.

If you or someone you know told what happened to you.  If you said, “I was attacked.  I was raped.  And it was not my fault.”  If you told and told and told until someone believed you, and helped you, and you were able to heal and move on to the gorgeous life that is your birthright.  If you or someone you know told someone you trust: Raise your hand.

These are the five fingers of self-defense.  We practice them every day.  And we remember them with a chant.  We say:

THINK

YELL

RUN

FIGHT

TELL

I’m going to teach more self-defense this afternoon.  Right now we’ll end by learning a basic strike and yell….

mind body mama: Stomp & Holler

On Saturday October 22, Pioneer Valley anti-violence activists, led by campus feminists from the five colleges, will join for Stomp & Holler; Because We’ve Had Enough.  Stomp & Holler is the Northampton iteration of the movement known as SlutWalk and stands in solidarity with SlutWalks the world over for an end to sexual violence and victim blaming.

The SlutWalk movement began in April 2011 in Toronto, Canada in response to a law enforcement officer’s suggestion that to avoid being raped "women should avoid dressing like sluts."  Since then there have been hundreds of SlutWalk events across the US and the world.

Organizers explain their decision to rename the local protest this way:

We believe that the word ‘slut’ was chosen in direct response to the cop’s statement in Toronto, but this movement is about addressing a global issue. We, collectively, felt uncomfortable with the call to ‘reclaim’ the word ‘slut.’ It is our mission to stand up and speak out against sexual assault and victim blaming, but we don’t feel that reclaiming this derogatory word accomplishes what we want to accomplish. In addition, there have been multiple critiques of SlutWalk in the past few weeks (including, but not limited to, the letter from Black Women’s Blueprint.) These critiques state that SlutWalk has not made room for people of color and has been predominately gender-normative. We, Stomp & Holler; Because We’ve Had Enough, want to make sure that our mission of inclusivity is known. We cannot fight sexism without working against all other forms of oppression. We must make a call for solidarity. Our first step may be changing our name, but the fight does not end with this march.

I’m excited that the (mostly) young organizers rebranded their event this way.  Since early on, critiques of the SlutWalk name have distracted from the central message of the event: no one deserves to be raped.  
There are no exceptions to this truth; nothing anyone can do or say or wear or be that makes him or her deserve sexual violence.  The responsibility for rape and sexual assault lies solely with the perpetrator.

To my mind, this principle is powerful enough to unite the broadest range of feminists.   And even some folks who shy away from the f-word.

When I think of who would stomp and holler to end rape and hold perpetrators—not survivors—accountable for sexual assault, I think of everyone I know.  Housewives and school teachers.  Journalists and doctors.  Activists and police.  Sex workers and clergy.  People of all colors.  Straight people, queer people, cisgendered and transfolk.  Kids and grown ups and elders. 

Any of us who fall into the one in six women, one in thirty-three men, who will experience an attempted or completed rape in their life time.  Any of us who love someone who falls into those statistics.  Any of us who work or study or worship or play with someone who falls into those statistics.

Which is all of us.

I’m honored to be speaking and teaching at Stomp & Holler.  Here’s why I think it's important that feminist empowerment self defense be part of the equation:

To counter the argument that self defense is itself victim blaming. This is an old chestnut and nothing could be further from the truth. I hold perpetrators solely responsible for assault. But given that I live (and am raising a daughter) in a world where 1/6 women will face sexual assault, I want skills and information to increase my safety.

To empower the crowd with participatory, embodied action.  There is nothing so powerful as standing in a huge crowd of women and allies learning how to strike and yell "NO!"

To underscore the perspective that safety is a right not a privilege.  We all deserve to be safe and whole by whatever means necessary.

Because self defense needs to be a baseline competency for women, queers and people of color in a violent, sexist, homophobic and racist society. If I'm teaching my kid how to brush her teeth and drive a car, I'm teaching her how to stand up for herself and protect herself. We need these skills to survive.

Because we all practice self defense every day and it needs to be named. Those of us under attack in this culture already take steps every day to increase our safety. This needs to be named and honored, and also protested. My straight, white male friends don't have to take these steps--they can assume that they will usually be physically safe in the world. This is an injustice.

mind body mama: Occupy

Occupy Wall Street is an imperfect movement, but it expresses the sentiment of an overwhelming number of people nationwide and worldwide that something is grossly wrong with the distribution of wealth and privilege.  Each Occupy event reveals the strengths and weaknesses of local activists, includes or excludes potential partners, and focusses on the core mission or diverges into street theater and self-aggrandizement.  It is a spontaneous, decentralized and passionate movement powered by angry, justified, fallible humans.

SlutWalk is a similarly imperfect movement based on the premise that no one deserves to be raped.  Like Occupy, Slutwalk has been criticized by allies and adversaries for its tactics, branding, inclusion, and focus.

Since April 2011 Slutwalk there have been hundreds of Slutwalks around the world.

Since last month, there have been hundreds of Occupy events across the country.  They are still growing and they are still going.  People have been camping in the streets and getting arrested en masse.

Maybe one police officer's idiotic remarks are not as galvanizing as the collapse of major world economies, record unemployment, the destruction of the middle class, the theft of our children’s future, the unfathomable unconscionable unapologetic  greed of the one percent.   

But rape culture is just as big and violent as economic injustice.  One in six women, one in thirty-three men, in this culture, will be sexually assaulted, in this country alone.  Other countries—during and in the aftermath of wars, natural disasters , or displacements, for example—see even higher rates of sexual assault.  And when we are assaulted we are blamed for it—by the media, cops, courts, and our cultures.  Because rape culture erases borders—it is an unsavory aspect of culture that appears around the world and throughout history.  

I am glad people are taking to the streets for economic justice. But I live for a world when Slutwalks—or their next, more inclusive, incisive, intelligible incarnations—take over cities for weeks on end.  I live for a world where the Slutwalk map looks like this.  And for the days after that, when our society steps up to deal with the shame of rape and rape culture—the perpetrators’ shame.