R - University-Student Union
Transcription
R - University-Student Union
What feminism means to me… Having the choice to do with my body and life what I want, without societal stigma — whether it be pursuing a career, or having children, or both. Chrissy, 29 Standing up to chauvinistic men even when it means putting myself in a dangerous situation. Reynaldo, 20 A stay-at-home mother. Liana, 29 Having the self-worth that prevents you from settling for being involved with and dealing with the game of a married man. Jason, 30 An understanding of the true equality of all human beings including the one between men and women, being strong to speak what you believe but not to ignore the contrary opinions, leading and helping those who need assistance to protect themselves verbally and physically. Aska, 31 Being able to look at her eyes and not her chest. Santi, 32 Strength! Leah, 22 Sticking to everything you believe in through the hell and highwater of other people-habitshistory-failure-community-society-oppositionhostility-patriarchies-media-genocide-povertypolitics-reputation-status-parents-family-self and more that say or imply that your truth is or should be otherwise. Jennifer, 21 The most basic manifestation of self-love. Nachito, 26 belieF accEptance open-Mindedness relatIonships harmoNy communIty reSpect every man, woMan and child Tommy, 31 LOVE! ´ FEMICIDE IN JUAREZ Milton, 60 Being proud of being a woman and being "thankful" that in this day and age we can educate our minds at our own free will and knowing that no matter which road we chose — motherhood or career woman — married or single, straight or gay — we mean something to this world, as we women make this world turn! Rachelle, 28 S PEA K UP [email protected] Free and Priceless Rebekah, 29 Gretchen, 58 Common sense. Issue 4 | Winter 2004 T H E W OR L D I S LIS T E NIN G ’ CELEBRATING INTERNATIONAL WOMEN S DAY MARCH 8 A LOOK AT THE AIDS PANDEMIC RIGHTS QUEERR A R O U N D THEW WORLD PLU new ficción! ! Everything that inequality is not; it celebrates unity, equity and positive progression over senseless power structures kept in place by assumed and promoted inequity. Speak POETS e feminism: fem- -niz- m – n. International Woman the movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and all oppression By Felicia Montes [email protected] The Women’s Resource Center (WRC) is part of the Cross Cultural Centers at California State University, Los Angeles. Its mission is to encourage student learning as well as to foster an inclusive campus environment free of racism, sexism, heterosexism and other forms of oppression. With a commitment to increasing cross-cultural awareness, we offer a wide variety of programs and services that explore both the shared and unique experiences, histories and heritages of our diverse community. Please contact the WRC at: (323) 343-3370 or by mail at: University-Student Union, 5154 State University Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90032. Jessica Hoffman, Thatcher Collins, and Mom, without whom nothing is possible. DESIGNER................................................ Kristy Wong DESIGN CONSULTANT........................... Eve NaRanong SPECIAL THANKS: To all the behind-the-scenes LOUDmouths, especially Stephanie Abraham Jennifer Ashley Daria Teruko Yudacufski Connie Martinez EDITOR IN CHIEF.......................... COPY EDITOR................................ CONSULTING EDITOR.................. AD SALES...................................... 6 e Front cover: Back cover: Photo by Carol Petersen. Larry Salamone, Iris, oil on canvas, 30 in. x 24 in., 2002. www.larrysalamone.com On the Cover 12 16 19 21 remembering the women of international women’s day femicide south of the border hiv/aids is still spreading the global queer community hazme un trabajo manita – a short story 7 9 11 15 16 17 20 confronting empire – arundhati breaks it down maria guardado tells her story palestinian women – holding it all together global abortion update female genital mutilation abelina colors us blind women, men, children sold into bondage 2 3 4 5 22 from the heart of the editor our feminist sheroes know your feminist faculty dear joanna – a health column the f-word the LOUDmouth list poets speak Special In Every Issue Be part of our growing community. Contact Connie Martinez of the Cross Cultural Centers at (323) 343-5001 or [email protected]. LOUDmouth encourages you to get LOUD! Send letters to the editor to: [email protected]. Or, place them in our mailbox in the Women’s Resource Center, on the 2nd floor of the University-Student Union. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. WRC The views expressed in LOUDmouth do not necessarily reflect those of California State University, Los Angeles, the University-Student Union, or their students, staff or administrators. And, because feminism is not a monolithic ideology, there may be as many viewpoints expressed here as there are feminists. Opinions are those of their respective authors and are not necessarily those of LOUDmouth. Soy una mujer de maiz Y la madre tierra es mi pais I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN Representing all four directions I am trying to make the connection Between my dreams and reality And the duality of my sexuality I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN After all womb.man we are the land Connected to the center The other world within ourselves And from my body flows a constant stream of truth Marking the rebirth of consciousness the re-evolution of el sexto sol I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN The trembles are felt all over the globe As la madre cries her tears cleansing herself from the evil within Her mijo, el hijo de la chingada The creation of destruction, given vida ‘cuz oh yes “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN Still taken from Surname Viet Given Name Nam, a film by Trinh T. Minh-ha. Alone looking into the turquesa stone I see the blood red road ahead The rain and clouds bringing a storm Tensions to all my relations I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN And as Getty banners speak of imagining in hoods across L.A. I am reminded why the world is still a ghetto From the corner Chinese Fashion Land To the vegetarian Taco Stand To the Vietnamese acrylic tips of the world I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN Advertise with LOUDmouth My true roots weaved together In trenzas, china curls, and blown out frizz Realizing that adornment can have consequences Whether Xolotl blues or Nike shoes... I keep strong with my Jordana hues I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN Living in the jungle, Chiapas and L.A. We live to remember the Pachamama’s way I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN Mujeres de Maiz, M.C.’s — mujeres en Ceremonia With life juices that flow like water from our bodies, Waves in tune with the moon, Seen at its fullest – by the eyes of those who look to the sky, the land, and the fire To create sacreds from sacreds And drink of these Mixed Waters Designed by U-SU Graffix. “poetry is the culture of a people. we are poets even when we don’t write poems…we are all preachers because we are one.” – nikki giovanni Mutiny in the Body By Susan Ahdoot [email protected] I just found out I’m going to be an aunt again and my ovaries just grabbed my uterus and squeezed. Hard. They’re getting pissed and taking hostages. The eggs are worried and ready to scramble. They’ve elected a scout for a kamikaze mission. It’s dodging guards in it’s search for freedom on it’s way to certain death. Because the swimmers are scarce and they’re scared to commit, hiding in latex foxholes and napalm jelly, killing themselves in their fury to avoid the fallopian falls. Yes, the ovaries are pissed and seeking revenge. There’s a battle being fought and it isn’t always pretty. I’m on a diplomatic mission seeking a cease fire with sweet talk and promises of better men to come. LOUDmouth 22 HAZME UN TRABAJO, MANITA By Erika Coronado O felia was a curandera from Inglewood — or at least that was where she set up her shop, Botánica Cielito Lindo, like the rich endless sky that blankets the universe. And like the sky, she never said where she was born or raised, never where she had visited. She had beautiful brown skin, brown like a steaming cup of chocolate caliente. Her hair, soft and curly, worked a blue-black halo of thought about her head. And she never failed to smile a warm saludo as you walked into the store. One of her customers was Doña Lupe. A tiny, 68year-old woman, Doña always wore cotton dresses with flower prints and a brown reboso that her late niece had knit for her. Every week after the Saturday service at her church she walked into the store to buy (only from Ofelia) a white candle that had been sprinkled with brown sugar and sand, which she lit in honor of her niece, Regina. “Los muertos, they need luz to light their way,” the old woman would always say to Ofelia. She would agree. There wasn’t much that she could do for Doña Lupe and her sorrow. El dolor de la muerte es como el del parto; nadie te lo puede — ni debe — quitártelo. Aunque sientas que tu pecho se convierte en un vacío Negro, y tu corazón en una réplica de barro que — al latir — se quiebra repetidamente. Ofelia spoke in a soft, comforting tone as she brought a brown cigarette to her lips. Her words, engulfed in a sweetsmelling smoke, were the only magia that she could offer Doña Lupe. Nothing you can do about the dead except remember them. And the living — never let them forget. Regina was 17 when she first started to sew at the maquila. “ASSEMBLED IN MEXICO OF U.S. COMPONENTS.” Those were her hands working — as though part of the machine — creating, stitching together string and mezclilla, running the tela through her hands like the hot sand from her pueblo in Yucatán. She had not been home for three days when her body was found in the peripheral sphere of the city, that outside rung of CIVILIZATION where only the beasts live. She was raped, tortured, beaten to death. One of her hands was clutching the sand around her, the other held on tightly to the hand of the girl that was found with her. EXISTEN MÁS DE 500 DESAPARECIDAS. Ofelia’s words were her magia: of comfort, of anger, of borrowed pain (there was an abundance to borrow). She borrowed Doña Lupe’s memory of Regina and spread it like a hand dropping magic sand. The mujeres at the Bodacious Sistas’ Beauty Salon next door reacted with sympathy. They had been witness to the constant beatings that one of their neighbors, Mary, took from her husband. Twice a month after his borrachera, he came home to bash his wife into black and blue. She was silenced, excusing his aggression toward her as this or that. But he was wearing her away, blurring the shine in her eyes until they shut for good. Ofelia’s magia reached all of her customers: the ones that came in looking for love potions and amarramientos; those curious about the Botánica who walked away with a cauldron full of incense. Guillermo stopped by the store on his way to school. For the longest time, it seemed, his heart beat just a little louder when Antonia was around. The only problem, as Guillermo saw it, was that Antonia wasn’t quite aware of his existence. He brought in a picture and a lock of hair, hoping that it would be enough for the amarramiento. “Hazme un trabajo, Manita. Bind her to me.” He exposed his situation to Ofelia, and LOUDmouth 21 a short story she asked him about Antonia and about himself. “She’s like an angel,” he said. “She’s always smiling, always tranquila, always surrounded by her friends.” Ofelia suggested that he talk to her. Pierde ese miedo — fear will get you nowhere. He would not need a trabajo de amarramiento if he spoke to her, got to know more than that beautiful smile of hers. Guillermo bought some incense and promised to come back. Two weeks later he came back to the Botánica. He wanted to tell Ofelia that he had worked up the courage to talk to Antonia. That she liked to read books on astronomy. That she felt an incredible and satisfying awe at the vastness and complexity of the Universe. And that she wanted to be an astrophysicist. The sun shone brightly in the sky full of clouds as Guillermo walked toward the Botánica entrance. The door needed a paint job to fix the cracked, aging brown paint. He thought to offer himself for the task. And just as he was thinking of the way he would tell Ofelia about the paint, he noticed the store was closed and empty. All he found was a piece of paper taped to the door and right beside it, an open paper bag filled with copal incense that read “Pa’ Los Muertos.” The paper had a poem scribbled on it along with the words, “Hay Que Esparcir Las Arenas.” He understood that the need to scatter the magical sands of knowledge had carried Ofelia away. He slowly took the note from the door and read it carefully: Pa’ Los Vivos Tengo: I have Unos ojos cafés eyes that look upon the men around me and women Ojos de mujer that take in (like black holes in the Universe) images of violent things Azules para variar ante mi piel Morena Mine the darkest skin with lines of birth and lines of age and lines, well etched, of scar and pain Blanca como la luz del amanecer Como una taza de leche Con café Y labios with which to speak of where we’ve been A veces pequeños A veces anchos Loud louder until the whole round Earth can hear you Tengo: I have Magia entre mis dientes Para dar poder a mi voz y Cambiar al mundo magic in my scars and in my wounds so that the body remembers and the mind never forgets Magia en mis hermanas Para sanar, para luchar, para curar esas heridas que Tenemos: We have Erika doesn't have magia in her hands, but she has seen magia in other hands and eyes and souls. Write to her with your magia at [email protected]. the Editor From the Heart of «¡Yo no te hice nada — tú estás loca!» Max uttered with disgust, asserting that I was crazy and he had done nothing wrong. Surely, it must have been me imagining his tongue thrusting down my throat in an unsolicited forced-kiss reminiscent of the ravenous “French” kisses of junior high and high school. Here I stood in a salsa club apparently breaking all the rules. To kiss and tell was one thing, but to be forced to kiss and call it out was quite another. “¿Qué te pasa? Why are you so angry?” his friends asked, trying to shush me. Angry? This was an understatement. If it were only rage running through my bloodstream. The shock, self-doubt and “maybe I am overreacting” thoughts all began to gnaw at me immediately, as they do when women, people of color and working-class folk stand up for themselves. Even my female friends perpetuated these feelings. “You guys look good together!” Carolina said, insinuating the possibilities for romance. “Why are you so upset?” “HE STUCK HIS TONGUE DOWN MY THROAT!” I declared again. “Yeah, but you two were dancing sexy,” she said plainly, dismissing my feelings of violation, suggesting that I should not only expect it, but enjoy it. Certainly in a court of law this would be the sentiment. I could hear all the arguments that would be used: Well, what do you expect dancing like that? Look at how provocatively you’re dressed. You shouldn’t have gone there if you weren’t willing to deal with the consequences. Granted, it was only a kiss. But it was a violent one. And we were on a dance floor in a crowded room. What if we had been at a small gathering? Or alone in his hotel room? Where would that kiss and the drive behind it have led? I contemplated the facility with which rape happens and how women brunt the blame. His hand on my shoulder interrupted my thoughts. “What’s wrong — do you have a boyfriend?” he asked. As if the only reason I could be mad was not for my own sake but because my man was going to get upset. Not a month earlier a good guy friend of mine had pulled the same kind of male privilege, ignoramus act on me. One sunny afternoon, he cupped his hands around my face and almost successfully forced his lips on mine. I managed to wiggle out and ask as politely as possible, “What the hell are you doing?” This was no salsero hotshot. He was a friend I trusted, with whom I had spent hours discussing the dynamics of sexism. When I asked him if he would have attempted to kiss me if I’d had a partner, his honest response was, “Probably not.” Is sovereignty over my own body only granted if I’m protecting or saving myself for a man? As Inga Muscio writes in Cunt, “As a woman living in this society, I’m consistently reminded I am a potential Whore whenever a man is not escorting me, which is rather most of the time.” Escort or not, a woman’s body seems to still be perceived as unmarked territory available for conquest at any time. John Mayer’s song “Your Body is a Wonderland” is a hopeful hit that relishes the best of butterflies-in-your-stomach romance, invoking the excitement that can come with the anticipation of exploring a lover’s body. Yet, as this edition of LOUDmouth started coming together, I began to realize that, in fact, the lyrics should more appropriately read, “Your body is a battlefield.” This issue is a tribute to International Women’s Day, which is March 8. It’s an annual holiday founded in honor of the young women in the United States who fought for their rights. Ironically, it is celebrated and recognized more often outside this country than in it (see “My Grandmother’s Knitting Needles”). Our cover story offers an overview of the horrors taking place in Juárez, Mexico, as women disappear and are raped and murdered. Maria Guardado talks to us about what it was like to survive the U.S.-funded tortures in El Salvador. We also cover female genital mutilation, the HIV/AIDS epidemic and cutbacks on abortion and birth control. Times are hard. Capitalist feminism, sometimes known as mainstream or bourgeois feminism, would have us believe that sexism is dead. Women are equal — end of story. Indeed, we have made gains. However, all too often, upper- and middle-class white women in the first world are the ones reaping the benefits of this “equality” and “liberation.” Internationally, there’s another reality. Of course, freedom is a matter of perception, and people have to define what it means for themselves. Yet, as we look around the world I must assert that sexism is far from dead, and we are far from liberated. By “we” I mean not only women, but all people. No one is free when others are oppressed. Period. This capitalist, white-supremacist patriarchy was not built in a day. It won’t be dismantled overnight either. There is hope. While it is true that women are victims of atrocities (and it is essential that we recognize this), it is also true that females are neither paralyzed nor cowering, but are fighting tooth and nail to bring about societal changes in order to muster conditions under which all people can bloom. In this issue you will also find examples of great resistance taking place all over the globe. It’s not that we’re not powerful. It’s that we so rarely understand how powerful we truly are. Although, I must admit, my childhood shero Pippi Longstocking understood it. She didn’t give a fuck — she would not be oppressed under any circumstances. She even (gasp) refused to go to school. Talk about breaking all the rules. She loved herself in all of her mismatched-socks glory. When Pippi came upon a beauty salon advertisement for a product to hide freckles that asked, “Do you suffer from freckles?” she marched right into the shop and up to the saleslady and said, “No, I don’t suffer from freckles.” The lady took one look at Pippi and burst out, “But, my dear child, your whole face is covered with freckles!” “I know it,” said Pippi, “but I don’t suffer from them. I love them. Good day.” If we all took her lesson to heart, we’d bring the multi-billion dollar beautification industry tumbling down. Pippi refused to take grief from anyone. She would not take “no” as an answer or fall prey to any bully in her environment. It was by following Pippi’s lead that I asked Max to dance six weeks after the forced-kiss incident, trusting that I could define the situation on my own terms by setting boundaries and affirming my own self-respect. I don’t know that I’ll ever be alone with him or that we’ll ever be friends. But I do know that while addressing real questions of victimization, I refuse to be a victim. So, here’s to you Pippi! Ironic to use a white girl from Sweden as a role model for our international women’s issue. Yet the rebellious redhead, that traviesa peliroja, offers us an example of how to tackle the heavy oppressions that bind us with a defiant, childlike, “ain’t no one gonna hold me down” spirit. We, too, can make the kind of trouble and magic that she made, exercising the power that comes with knowing what we want and how to get it. In the tongue of my Syrian and Lebanese grandmothers — Al-hurriyya bintizharuna. Freedom awaits us. Stephanie Abraham, Editor in Chief LOUDmouth 2 OUR feminist SHEROES By Joseph Coleman KNOW YOUR FeministFACULTY By Amanda R. Davis of the South Central Colemans B orn and raised in San Pedro, Calif., Yuri Kochiyama grew up in a small, working-class community. Her parents were both Japanese immigrants and were diligent about keeping Yuri as religious, provincial and apolitical as possible. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, things dramatically changed for Yuri’s family as well as thousands of other Japanese American citizens. Seized by hysteria, the United States forced many Japanese Americans into internment camps. Due to the onslaught of government paranoia, many Japanese Americans, including Yuri’s own father, were accused of false charges of espionage. Imprisoned in a federal penitentiary, Yuri’s father was forced to undergo harsh conditions and interrogation. After learning the hard way about the injustices of the U.S. government, Yuri recognized the parallels between the treatment of African Americans and Japanese Americans. In 1960, Yuri moved with her husband, Bill, to New York which was steaming with political activity and the Yuri Kochiyama beginnings of major political movements for black liberation. Yuri further transformed her political ideals into action in 1963 when she became friends with Malcolm X. Her encounter with Malcolm influenced many of her perceptions on life and infused a passion that moved her to enlist in the battle for civil rights. Some of her highlights as a political activist include her work with the Black Panther Party and the takeover of the Statue of Liberty in 1977 to demand freedom for Puerto Rican political prisoners. As a couple, both Yuri and Bill helped fight for reparations for the Japanese Americans who were imprisoned during World War II. Yuri is still immersed in the fight against social injustice and works to inspire the next generation of young activists to continue the struggle. Yuri is a true freedom fighter, and she has helped to set the tone for social change in this country. I was blessed to have the opportunity to hear Yuri speak and to let her know that she’s had a positive impact on my life as a black man. Thank you, Yuri, you are an inspiration to us all. D r. Ann Garry is a professor of philosophy and director of the Center for the Study of Genders and Sexualities. She calls herself a feminist without hesitation and says that she “didn’t like people telling me I couldn’t do something because I was a girl.” She thinks of feminism as a “movement that advocates that women can be full-fledged people.” Her classes Contemporary Moral and Social Issues in a Multicultural Society and Philosophy of Gender and Culture are strictly related to gender and feminism. However, Dr. Garry incorporates feminism into every class that she teaches. She encounters a number of students who do not self-identify as feminists, but even if they do not claim the label, Dr. Garry believes that most people are in fact feminists because they hold what are feminist beliefs. She says that many people are reluctant to assume the label because of the common misconceptions associated with the term. “It’s not an accident that people still have those [stereotypes]. People that are opposed to feminism keep dragging them up,” she says. As head of the Center for the Study of Genders and Sexualities, Dr. Garry encourages students to get involved. There are internships available and several programs scheduled. One of the goals of the center is to provide an institutional base of support for feminist, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender scholarship. You can learn more at www.calstatela.edu/centers/csgs. Dr. Garry has taught at Cal State L.A. for more than 30 years and has received such recognitions as the Outstanding Professor Award, the President’s Distinguished Professor Award and the Distinguished Woman Award. She edited the book Women, Knowledge and Reality: Explorations in Feminist Philosophy and serves as associate editor of Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, which she also helped found. inside the ring THE BUSINESS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING By Kate Herman and Sarah A.West T he practice of buying and selling humans for profit is an age-old enterprise, yet it is alive and well today in the form of human trafficking — the world’s fastest-growing criminal industry. Consider these statistics: UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children worldwide are trafficked each year. The numbers are so difficult to track that annual estimates of global trafficking, including men, women and children, vary from 700,000 to 4 million. And it’s not just in tawdry Asian brothels or European redlight districts: In 1997 the CIA estimated that 50,000 persons were trafficked to the United States annually. Though the numbers are disputed, one fact is accepted across the board: Trafficking ranks third-largest in sources of profits for organized crime, placing the multi-billion dollar industry behind only drugs and guns. While the sex trade gets considerably more media attention than other forms of trafficking, reports of forced labor trafficking show the problem is much broader. Countries facing economic strain, high unemployment rates, a lack of women’s rights and corrupt governments show higher numbers of trafficked persons. Trafficking is predominant throughout East Asia and the Pacific, for instance, and spiked in Central and Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. But the problem can be found in nearly every country around the globe, including the United States. In the wake of this sharp increase in trafficking, leaders around the world are taking notice — and action. Policy-makers, governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), women’s groups and activists all have honed in on this problem. Indeed, trafficking has become a unifying issue among feminist and religious fundamentalists, Democrats and Republicans. Breaking the Cycle With stronger laws and worldwide awareness, the human-trafficking industry is under the harshest scrutiny to date. Nevertheless, the January/February 2003 issue of Foreign Policy listed the illegal trade of persons as one of the top five wars we, as a global society, are losing. The tangible effects of human trafficking, and sex trafficking in particular, are impossible to ignore. Children ensnared in trafficking circles suffer lifelong losses — from education to health to their very lives. “Sex trafficking is an almost inevitable death sentence for victims for several reasons,” Holly Burkhalter of Physicians for Human Rights testified to Congress. Children have no ability to insist on the use of condoms, they are forced to have sex with multiple partners daily, and the often-violent sexual encounters expose girls’ physically immature bodies to a greater number of infections and diseases, Burkhalter said. At the height of Thailand’s AIDS epidemic, more than 80 percent of HIV/AIDS cases could be attributed to women in the sex industry and their clients. “It seems highly likely that coercing or forcing millions of cases of girls and women into violent, unprotected sex acts with multiple partners is a significant factor in the spread of the AIDS pandemic,” Burkhalter explained. Often, a promise of hope becomes a child’s worst nightmare. For millions of children around the world, that nightmare is a daily reality. This story was first printed in Outlook, the magazine of the American Association of University Women. www.aauw.org Kate is a senior editor at Outlook. Sarah is a research associate at Progressive Policy Institute. Contact Dr. Garry at [email protected]. LOUDmouth 3 LOUDmouth 20 HEALTH Queer Guy & Girl WORLD EYE ON THE J • There are nine countries in the world today that call for the execution of people convicted of committing homosexual acts — among them are Afghanistan, Sudan, Chechen Republic and Saudi Arabia. • In the mid-1990s, “social cleansing” of LGBT communities was rampant in Colombia, where according to attorney and activist Juan Pablo Ordonez, 7,000 of the 40,000 murders in the country in that period were committed against LGBT-community members by a “right-wing death squad.” Ordonez fled Colombia to the United States after investigating and publicizing his findings. In her 2003 novel, The Dirty Girls Social Club, Alisa Valdes Rodriguez explores the issue of Colombian social cleansing through the Elizabeth Cruz character. • The social cleansing of queer folks has been a common practice in countries such as Indonesia, Iran, and Yemen, where LGBT people have been routinely harassed, beaten and ordered to leave their towns. • The president of Zimbabwe claimed that homosexuals are “lower than dogs and pigs.” LOUDmouth 19 THE F-WORD what feminism means to me Joanna E. Gaspar, M.S., M.P.H. By Shauna Robinson Q : My boyfriend sometimes gets really angry at me and begins to throw things. We've been talking about moving in together, but I feel hesitant. What should I do? Also, is name calling really "abuse?" By Frederick Smith ust when you thought the queer community in the United States had it bad, you begin to realize that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) folks around the world have some tough challenges of their own. Take for example: Joanna Dear Audre Lorde (1934-1992) in her own words, was a “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior poet.” She was also an activist, teacher, cancer survivor and author of 17 books of prose and poetry. Photograph by Jean Weisinger. • In many countries, the intersection of sexism and heterosexism makes the issues of lesbians either invisible or extremely exoticized. Either way, queer men’s issues dominate and fuel the discussion and debate. • The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas sodomy law in 2003, saying the private sexual conduct of people is not the business of the government. 2003 … in the United States! Around the world, the human rights of the queer community are violated daily. Individuals are imprisoned and killed by their own governments for being LGBT; they are also harassed, beaten, murdered and discriminated against on a regular basis. And the few advocates who speak up in those situations are often the targets of death threats and harassment. Amnesty International has taken up the fight for those who cannot speak for themselves in many countries. With the belief that all people deserve equal protection under the law, and that all people deserve basic human rights, the organization has created OUTfront, a small army of activists working to confront human-rights violations of the queer community. Communities of faith are taking it upon themselves to raise awareness of LGBT issues. LGBT Muslims and nonMuslims came together for the First International Retreat for LGBT Muslims in Boston in 1998. A second retreat took place in South Africa in 2000. “We have finally taken the first steps to come together to address the issues that are important to us as a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Muslim community,” said Faisal Alam, Retreat Coordinator and founder of Al-Fatiha. For members of the LGBT community in the United States, joining the international fight for human rights can be empowering. Because even though the community is debated over politically, talked about socially and argued over religiously, queers in the United States still have some basic protections under the law that aren’t even in the books elsewhere. To look further into international queer issues, check out the Amnesty International website, www.amnestyusa.org/outfront, or the International Gay and Lesbian Association website, www.ilga.org. Fred has just completed a fiction manuscript about four queer men of color in L.A. and is seeking a literary agent. Contact him at [email protected]. A : It may not seem like it, but throwing things and name calling are forms of abuse, and you need to seriously consider where this relationship might lead. Dating/domestic violence are Questions for Joanna? Send them to [email protected]. patterns of behavior that one partner uses to gain power over the other. They include public humiliation, playing mind games, name calling; isolating you from family/friends; making threats; hitting, slapping, kicking and sexual assault/rape. Dating/domestic violence is against the law. Dating/domestic violence often occurs as a “cycle of violence” consisting of three phases that increase in both frequency and severity over time. During the tension-building phase, abusing partners are “edgy” and often verbally abuse their partners. As tension increases, minor episodes of violence occur, such as throwing things or shoving. The tension-building phase ends in an explosion of uncontrolled violence, the acute battering phase. Abusers discount this violent episode and may refuse to summon medical help for their partners. During the loving reconciliation phase, abusers may apologize and “shower” their partners with love. This pleasurable time may convince partners to stay with abusers. Without help, the cycle repeats, and eventually the tension-building phases become shorter and more intense, the battering incidents more frequent and severe, and the lovingreconciliation period shorter and less intense. For help and more information, call the 24-hour National Domestic Violence Hotline (www.ndvh.org) at (800) 799-SAFE (7233) or (800) 787-3224 (TTY); talk with a health professional at the Student Health Center; speak with a campus police officer at (323) 343-3700; and/or visit the California Courts Self-Help Center at www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp/dv/. Call 911 if you are in immediate danger. The Student Health Center is located on the main walkway across from Biological Sciences and adjacent to the Center for Career Planning and Placement. For more information call (323) 343-3300 or go online to www.calstatela.edu/univ/hlth_ctr/. Services for women and men include but are not limited to family planning, counseling and prescribing, immunizations and testing for STDs. Pap smears for cancer screening are available for women. Outpatient care is available Monday and Thursday, 8:30 a.m.7 p.m.; Tuesday and Wednesday, 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m.; and Friday, 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Send Shauna your thoughts on the f-word: [email protected]. “The F-WORD,” a regular column which made its debut in the fall, features poets, artists, intellectuals and good-hearted folk talking about what “feminism” means to them. Here, writer Shauna Robinson delves into what the word, the movement, and the feminist identity mean to her. We, at LOUDmouth, believe the debate needs to be ongoing. Again, we encourage you to start one up with your friends and enemies today. t seems like most people flee from feminism like it’s a dirty little label. Black women, like me, try to escape it because we are Black first, female second and, “Those white women don’t even speak my language.” Men often run from it because the word alone connotates various types of power (some real, some perceived, some authentic, some exaggerated). I’m here to claim that dirty little label. I’m stitching it on my backside because I am proud to be a feminist. Frankly, I don’t care what came first — the chicken or the egg, the right to vote or the right to freedom. For me, I’m as Black as I am female. I have kinky hair and a clitoris. And, being a feminist serves all parts of me because feminism is an analogy for humanity and humanity is something that every human has the power to bestow. In the context of the evolution of the human race, women a thousand years from now will probably be amazed that it was once necessary to dissect our decency into little group-appropriate labels, to liberate aspects of ourselves one section at a time. But today, feminism exists because the storm of oppression on females continues to rain down across the world. And, even in the midst of the storm, feminism fights back like welcome sunshine. I Shauna, a screenwriter and more, was recently selected for the Guy Hanks & Marvin Miller Fellowship program founded by Drs. Camille and Bill Cosby. She hopes to change the world one image at a time. LOUDmouth 4 LIST books all feminists need in their toolbox editor’s By Jessica Hoffmann (JH) and Gregory Alan Kingman Hom (AK) Feminism Without Borders by Chandra Talpade Mohanty – This collection of Mohanty’s essays on transnational feminism will, in the words of Angela Davis, “radically [change] the way we think about such categories as ‘Third World women,’ ‘women of color’ and ‘globalization.’” (JH) Women’s Activism and Globalization ed. by Nancy A. Naples and Manisha Desai – This anthology contains more than a dozen articles about contemporary women’s struggles around the world, including pieces on maquila workers’ rights, Okinawa women’s resistance to U.S. militarism and rural women organizing around local/global economic issues. The collection looks at how women in diverse regions are engaging in local/global struggles. (JH) Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition ed. by Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema–Combining scholarly essays with personal narratives, interviews and reports, this anthology presents the perspectives of sex workers from Asia, Australia, the Americas, the Caribbean, Africa and Western Europe. Major themes: rethinking sex work, migrations and tourism, sex workers’ organizations and AIDS prevention as well as sex workers’ empowerment. (JH) v-day Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa – There is nothing like Borderlands. In her exploration of psychological, sexual, spiritual, physical, cultural and social borderlands – the U.S.Mexico border, the borders between identities, the border between queer and straight, and more – Anzaldúa moves between poetry and prose, English and Spanish, critical theory and intimate memoir, weaving a text that is as complex and fluid and difficult and urgent as its subject. (JH) Sandino’s Daughters by Margaret Randall, ed. by Lynda Yanz – At the time of its publication, this book was the first book-length account of the Nicaraguan Revolution. Additionally, its focus was exclusively on women who were involved in revolutionary politics and action. A variety of class, religious and age opinions show the myriad ways in which women were searching for liberation before and after an inspiring struggle and in the face of a counterrevolution. The pictures are beautiful. (AK) Daughters of Maharashtra: Portraits of Women Who Are Building Maharashtra by Abhijit Varde, ed. by Vidya Bal – Inspired by Sandino’s Daughters, the photographer and interviewer spoke to women in a Maharashtra village about their involvement in anti-colonial struggles. The interviews took place long after the women’s participation and reveal their long-lasting wisdom. The book is also meaningful because these women’s stories had never been told before this account. (AK) By Mary Montoro E ve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues is an Obie Award-winning play that is composed of a series of monologues based on interviews from over 200 women of the precious vagina. A lot of the monologues deal with rape, incest, domestic violence and all other unspeakable acts against women. The play talks about what is usually kept silent and buried. From the success of The Vagina Monologues spawned the idea to start V-Day, a non-profit organization that Ensler started in 1998 with the focus on aiding women worldwide. The V-Day organization brings cultural awareness to women who desperately need help. Simple things like little girls being able to attend school safely are a crucial step for female empowerment. The website gives a list on how everyone can do their part to stop the madness and destruction of the female body, mind and LOUDmouth 5 picks Cunt: A Declaration of Independence by Inga Muscio – The essence of self-help and revolution. As Margaret Cho put it: Anyone who was born out of one needs to read this. Broken up into three parts – the word, the jewel and reconciliation – she looks at everything from blood to Whoredom, orgasm to rape. Moon cycles and womanifestos as well. Practical and profound. Read the 2002 version with the new afterword. To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism ed. by Rebecca Walker – Twenty personal essays written by “an eclectic gathering of folks: a lawyer, videomaker, actor, cultural critic, professor, student, and yes, among others, two men and a ‘supermodel,’” who grapple with what it means to be a feminist today even when it feels like their version of feminism might not be “politically correct.” Sex, beauty, bachelor parties and identity politics are a few of the things touched on. True. Honest. Insightful. Inspirational. Orientalism by Edward W. Said – Although Professor Said, a Palestinian American, passed away this year, his works continue to influence and inspire. This groundbreaking book had a great impact on the lens through which the Middle East is viewed and has significantly influenced filmmakers, artists (see interview with Abelina) and intellectuals alike. He looks at how history, empire, religion and then some have affected the way “the Orient” is viewed, scrutinized and misunderstood. Woman, Native, Other spirit. There are campaigns both worldwide and small ones at colleges and universities that bring the awareness to your town. Also, the site has an extraordinary list of programs such as Afghan Women’s Summit and the Stop Rape Contest to illustrate how serious the problems are and what can be done about them. On a lighter note, the members of the ever-growing and popular vulva choir share stories of their own vaginas. Actresses Gina Gershon, Calista Flockhart and Oprah Winfrey are only a handful of women who participate in events ending domestic violence against women. You can learn how to get involved with V-Day, be a part of their events and find out where the nearest V-Day event is near you at www.vday.org. When it comes to v-words, Mary prefers victory over vagina. Send your favorite words her way: [email protected]. by Trinh T. Minh-ha – In this important work, Trinh questions language and writing in relation to the notions of ethnicity and femininity; of identity, authenticity, and difference; of commitment as to the function and role of the woman writer; and of storytelling as one of the oldest forms of building historical consciousness. Her critical lens challenges the reader to rethink privilege, the role of the written word, and language itself. never allowed to go to parties as a teenager. I was perceived as a woman by then and I’m not supposed to be “wasting my time,” because nice girls stay at home. So how did you become a feminist artist? It was an amalgamate of many things, many situations that just one day blew up, and I said, “That’s it. Either I’m going to die living like this or I have to stand up to my word and to my true self.” Can you describe, in general, your artistic project? I just wanted to turn the mirror to the other 50 percent of the population, which is men. I wanted them to see what we see. But I wasn’t successful in doing that. So many things have been so canonized that it’s not easy with just, say, five paintings, to have viewers see what I see — “I” meaning women in general. Let’s take Jean-Leon Gerome’s The Slave Market — a nude woman being sold off. That is seen as a classical work of beauty. I did the same exact thing, except with a male nude, and that was seen as a vulgar, crude, perverted expression. With Jean-Leon Gerome, viewers applaud his technique. My technique could inter-compare with his. But viewers saw the penis and couldn’t get over the fact that there is a viable, hard penis in that painting. “Why is he sitting there, in that position — in a shamed position — yet his penis is hard? How did that happen? How come these older women are scrutinizing him and testing him?” In addition to the work you’re doing in subverting the canonized male gaze, you’re also doing work around Orientalism. How would you define Orientalism? Orientalism is a Western thought. It’s a Western fantasy ...to really exoticize the other. It’s been a way for Western artists to capitalize on Oriental literature, paintings — a way of “transcending” the Occident. In the late 18th century, it became a fashion, a mode. Most artists would go to Turkey or North Africa and they would stay there for months, doing their paintings. Schools started forming. The French and British were the forerunners. So it became a fashion, and these paintings ended up in the living rooms of the French and British bourgeoisie. They would end up in living rooms and dining rooms of bachelors, of powerful men — these nudes of Eastern women. So, in choosing to recast these particular paintings, gender-wise, you’re making a very specific choice. Yes. I’m choosing, specifically, ones that are very well known. I want the viewers to do a double-take and say, “Wait a minute. We recognize this. We’ve seen this somewhere — but, we haven’t!” Secondly, they also have a historical meaning for me. For example, The Deposed Favorite was in Sultan Abdul Aziz‘s court. He had the biggest harem. Most of the women were Armenian. Men would just go and kidnap these women and use them as they pleased and then depose them. Also in 1915, the Turks massacred more than a million-and-a-half Armenians. This is my way of saying something about the genocide. In The Deposed Favorite...these women are being deposed, but here I have the Turkish man and the Armenian queen — or Sultana — who has power over male sexuality, who has power of her own sexuality. And she’s not afraid to use it. What do you think of the concept of “global feminism?” I think there’s value in uniting globally. There should be a United Nations of Feminists. And there should be collaboration. For example, I’m dealing with my own cultural oppressions, but when I look into Western feminist thought, it interweaves with my own concerns and elucidates certain things that I wouldn’t otherwise think about. Secondly, empowerment of other women, in other areas or arenas, is also empowerment for me...That’s one of the reasons that Iran is not happy with Shirin Ebadi’s Nobel prize — because women, all of a sudden, became empowered. The headscarves became a little loose, and the ayatollahs became a little worried. It was like, if she can win the Nobel prize, can’t we win one piece of rights, even in our homes? This is going to build up to a revolution for women. Because of one woman. Learn more about Abelina and her work at www.womansword.com. Jessica collaborates with Abelina and other ferocious chicks on KPFK’s Feminist Magazine (90.7 FM in Los Angeles). She loves getting e-mail, so indulge her at [email protected]. Abelina Galustian, Examining Slaves, oil on canvas, 6 ft. x 5.5 ft., 2002. LOUDmouth 18 Sex & Pow er AN INTERVIEW WITH ABELINA GALUSTIAN By Jessica Hoffmann A belina Galustian’s paintings explore patriarchy, Orientalism, sex and more. She believes in turning gender roles on their head, and then some. LOUDmouth writer Jessica Hoffmann recently spent an hour talking with Abelina over coffee. They’re garrulous girls; the following is a condensed version of their conversation. JH: When we met, you introduced yourself as “a feminist artist.” Why do you choose to immediately identify yourself as an artist and as a feminist? AG: The reason I identify myself as a feminist artist is because I’m an activist first and an artist second...Art gives an immediate assault to the senses, and it leaves no room for niceties or political correctness. You’re clearly not interested in niceties; your work is bold and direct. I wonder if you’ve always been that way— I’ve never been that way. I became that way recently. I’ve been taught to respect and to stay quiet and to not talk that much. A woman in my cultural context shouldn’t say more than three words at a time, she should be very modest and...act very chaste. She has to know...the theatrics of how to be feminine. “Feminine,” in our definition, is to be submissive, to be quiet, to be agreeable — with men. Photo of the artist by Vachik Galustian. LOUDmouth 17 Can you describe for readers what your “cultural context” is? I come from a diasporic background. I’m Armenian, but I was born and raised in Iran. I was 10 years old when I came to the U.S. It was very difficult in the beginning. I was never allowed to do the things that my Western friends did. I was HONORING INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY m y grandmo t her ’s knit ting needles By Emma Rosenthal “What the woman who labors wants is to live, not simply exist — the right to life as the rich woman has it, the right to life, and the sun, and music and art. You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses too.” — Garment worker Rose Schneiderman, August 1912 H er hands moved like mercury. The click-clack of the needles, back and forth, the yarn spinning from the ball on the floor into the moving swarm of hands and needles, emerging as form, as hats, gloves, scarves, sweaters. “Watch and learn,” she would tell me, and I tried but all I saw was the miraculous transformation of a ball of yarn into cloth. She had grandmother hands, bumpy where the veins stood out, loose, soft skin. “Before a girl could get married in my village, she had to prove that she was patient enough for the task,” she told me. “They would give her a bundle of tangled yarn,” she would say, as we would struggle to untangle wool, or rope or extension cords. She told the story as she wound yarn into balls for knitting. “If she could not untangle the yarn, she could not get married.” I remember that story every time I have something to untangle. I would never settle for a village marriage, but patience is a skill applied to any task worthy of completion. By the time she was five she had lost her entire immediate family. It is not clear if they died of illness and starvation or were killed in pogroms, massacres committed by Polish or Russian authorities against the Jewish peasants throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Either way, it was governmental policies toward the Jews that killed them, living in the region that was Poland one day, Russia the next, bombarded by Cossacks, governmentsanctioned thugs that rode in on horseback killing and destroying everything in their sight, slashing open the bellies of pregnant women, raping children, killing the livestock, burning homes. She remembered being thrown into a root cellar by her aunt when she was only six to hide from the Cossacks, hidden among the carrots and parsnips, potatoes and rutabagas, while death and destruction ravaged in the streets above her. At six, she landed on Ellis Island in New York Harbor with her aunt and nephews on the false passport of her dead cousin. They came to join her uncle in New York, in America, where there was supposed to be such abundance that they shoveled gold in the streets. What she found were the tenements of New York’s Lower East Side. Delancy Street, Hester Street. A three-room, cold water walk-up flat on the fourth floor. There was no bath. The toilet was in the hallway, shared by all the families on the floor. She slept in the kitchen. She decided to go to work. At age 9 she went to the factory by day and to school at night. Now she had three different identities, something as common to the immigrant experience as cheap labor and cloth dust. She was of course, herself — Anna Kaufman — daughter of Aaron Moses Kaufman and Choma Reingold. Her passport gave her the identity of her dead cousin. And now she had a third set of documents, for work, identifying her as a 13-year-old. She found employment in an umbrella factory making the tips of umbrellas. She worked there for three years. By the time she was 12, she was able to make every part of the umbrella and was now a shop forelady. It was that year, 1909, that a strike broke out in the garment industry. The strike, led mostly by Jewish and Italian immigrant teenagers, was named the Uprising of the 20,000. Not a machine whirred, not a wheel turned. The strike, which began on Nov. 22, 1909, lasted almost four months — through the winter — and ended on March 8, 1910. She wasn’t a leader in the strike, but she left her lofty position of middle management and walked out with the other workers in one of American history’s biggest strikes. “I didn’t want to be a scab,” she told me. Such a different world, where a 12-year-old girl knows the sanctity of a picket line and the importance of righteous bread. “Watch and learn,” she would tell me, her hands moving like silver as yarn became cloth. “Watch and learn.” I still can’t knit. I never have crossed a picket line. Emma is an artist, educator and human-rights activist who was one of 30,000 striking teachers in the Los Angeles teachers’ strike of 1989. Reach her at [email protected]. At the International Conference of Socialist Women, held in Copenhagen in 1910, feminist and revolutionary Clara Zetkin offered a resolution to establish International Women’s Day (IWD) in solidarity with the strikers in the Uprising of the 20,000. The motion passed unanimously. The first IWD was held on March 19, 1911. It was moved to March 8 in 1919, the one-year anniversary of the strike for bread and peace held by women in St. Petersberg, Russia, which turned into four days of rioting culminating in the abdication of the czar. Founded in honor of the fierce young women fighting for their rights in the United States, many Americans have never heard of IWD, although it is celebrated annually all over the globe. LOUDmouth 6 CONFRONTING THE HIV/ AIDS EPIDEMIC By Julie Sabatier I People around the world are standing up to the World Trade Organization. Photo courtesy of the Focus on the Global South, Manila Office. Editor’s note: As we go to print, activists, artists and intellectuals are gathering from all over the globe at the World Social Forum (WSF) in India (www.wsfindia.org). This talk was presented at last year’s WSF in Porto Alegre, Brazil, yet is still relevant today. Arundhati takes a look at the atrocities taking place — before the United States invaded Iraq last year — that continue in the present day. At the same time, she gracefully offers a beacon of hope that resistance is not only possible, it is inevitable. I have been asked to speak about how to confront empire. It’s a huge question, and I have no easy answers. When we speak of confronting empire, we need to identify what empire means. Does it mean the U.S. government (and its European satellites), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that? In many countries, empire has sprouted other subsidiary heads, some dangerous byproducts — nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and, of course, terrorism. All these march arm in arm with the project of corporate globalization. Let me illustrate what I mean. India, the world’s biggest democracy, is currently at the forefront of the corporate globalization project. Its “market” of one billion people is being pried open by the WTO. Corporatization and privatization are being welcomed by the government and the Indian elite. It is not coincidence that the prime minister, the home minister, the disinvestment minister — the men who signed the deal with Enron in India, the men who are selling the country’s infrastructure to corporate multinationals, the men who want to privatize water, electricity, oil, coal, steel, health, education and telecommunications — are all members or admirers of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing, ultraLOUDmouth 7 nationalist Hindu guild that has openly admired Hitler and his methods. The dismantling of democracy is proceeding with the speed and efficiency of a structural-adjustment program. While the project of corporate globalization rips through people’s lives in India, massive privatization and labor “reforms” are pushing people off their land and out of their jobs. Hundreds of impoverished farmers are committing suicide by consuming pesticides. Reports of starvation deaths are coming in from all over the country. While the elite journey to their imaginary destination somewhere near the top of the world, the dispossessed spiral downwards into crime and chaos. This climate of frustration and national disillusionment is the perfect breeding ground, history tells us, for fascism. The two arms of the Indian government have evolved the perfect pincer action. While one arm is busy selling India off in chunks, the other, to divert attention, orchestrates a howling, baying chorus of Hindu nationalism and religious fascism. It conducts nuclear tests, rewrites history books, burns churches and demolishes mosques. Censorship, surveillance, the suspension of civil liberties and human rights, the questioning of who is an Indian citizen and who is not, particularly with regard to religious minorities, are all becoming common practice. Last March, in the state of Gujarat, 2,000 Muslims were butchered in a state-sponsored pogrom. Muslim women were especially targeted. They were stripped and gang raped before being burned alive. Arsonists burned and looted shops, homes, textile mills and mosques. More than 150,000 Muslims have been driven from their homes. The economic base of the Muslim community has been devastated. While Gujarat burned, the Indian Prime Minister was on MTV promoting his new poems. In December 2002, the government that t may be a new year, but Africa finds itself facing the same problems in an ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis. In a culture where people have limited access to family-planning facilities and basic information about sexual health, women are particularly at risk. Many young girls struggling to pay their school fees are approached by “sugar daddies” who offer to pay for their education among other things in exchange for sexual favors. Many of these often older men are infected with HIV and spread it to many young women at once. The spread of deadly misinformation perpetuates infection. For example, it is widely believed amongst men that a quick cure to the disease is to have sex with a virgin. When women become pregnant, they have very few options besides carrying the child to term. On average, an African woman will give birth to six children during her lifetime. One of the leading causes of death for a pregnant woman is AIDS. Though the HIV/AIDS crisis, as well as Africa’s maternal mortality rate, is clearly linked to the lack of information about sexual health and birth control, the Bush administration’s solution to the problem is to increase funds while restricting sex education. The United States is directing the bulk of these funds into drug-treatment programs. In late 2003, South Africa, one of the continent’s richest nations, revealed a plan to provide antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) to its citizens free of charge. Zambia hopes to implement a similar program in the upcoming year. The United States is not the only country attempting to gain control of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. In late 2003, Canada announced that it was changing its patent laws to allow the sale of generic drugs at reduced prices to developing countries. This makes Canada the first industrialized country to offer ARVs at lower prices to Africa. Last year, the South African government struggled with drug companies to change patent laws that would cut ARV prices by over 50 percent. This year, with medication available at reduced costs, perhaps the focus can return to reopening clinics and arming the African people with more comprehensive information on the spread of AIDS and sexual health in general. Julie lives in Portland, Ore., where she wishes the sun visited a little more often. Send her some light: [email protected]. FILM female genital mutilation T he Day I Will Never Forget is a gripping feature documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Kim Longinotto (Divorce Iranian Style and Runaway) that examines the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Kenya and the pioneering African women who are bravely reversing the tradition. In this epic work, women speak candidly about the practice and explain its cultural significance within Kenyan society. From gripping testimonials by young women who share the painful aftermath of their trauma to interviews with elderly matriarchs who stubbornly stand behind the practice, Longinotto paints a complex portrait of the current polemics and conflicts that have allowed this procedure to exist well into modern times. Female genital mutilation (FGM) is the term used to refer to the removal of part, or all, of the female genitalia. The most severe form is infibulation, also known as pharaonic circumcision. An estimated 15 percent of all mutilations in Africa are infibulations. The procedure consists of clitoridectomy (where all, or part of, the clitoris is removed), excision (removal of all, or part of, the labia minora), and cutting of the labia majora to create raw surfaces, which are then stitched or held together in order to form a cover over the vagina when they heal. A small hole is left to allow urine and menstrual blood to escape. In some less conventional forms of infibulation, less tissue is removed and a larger opening is left. The vast majority (85 percent) of genital mutilations performed in Africa consist of clitoridectomy or excision. The least radical procedure consists of the removal of the clitoral hood. In some traditions a ceremony is held, but no mutilation of the genitals occurs. The ritual may include holding a knife next to the genitals, pricking the clitoris, cutting some pubic hair, or light scarification in the genital or upper thigh area. Winner of many awards, The Day I Will Never Forget demystifies the African tradition of female circumcision. Longinotto presents Nurse Fardhosa, a woman who is single-handedly reversing the ritual one village at a time by educating communities about its lasting emotional and physical scars. Also profiled are an inspiring group of runaway girls who are seeking a court injunction to stop their parents from forcing them to go through with the practice. Through their words the full implications of breaking with tradition are made clear, as is the incredible courage of the women and girls who risk social ostracism by taking a stand against the practice. The Day I Will Never Forget was shown at the Maxwell Theatre in the UniversityStudent Union on Feb. 26 this year and is available for viewing through the Cross Cultural Centers office at (323) 343-5001. For more information on this film check out the Women Make Movies website: www.wmm.com. For more on FGM visit Amnesty International’s website at www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/femgen/fgm1.htm. LOUDmouth 16 NEW URGENCY TO FIGHT FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS By Peggy Simpson P olitical hypocrisy is alive and well in Poland. In the last election, the governing Democratic Left Alliance, or SLD, had won votes over the Solidarity parties by promising to liberalize Poland’s abortion law, rivaled with only Ireland’s as the strictest in Europe. The SLD reneged on that promise in January 2003 in order to curry favor with Catholic bishops who they feared could derail Poland’s upcoming entry into the European Union. President Aleksander Kwaniewski takes the cake. He favored expanding the 1993 law beyond current exceptions for rape, incest, fetal deformities or health of the mother. Now he says the law isn’t that bad — especially when Poland’s birth rate is so low. With nearly 11 million women of childbearing age, a thriving black-market abortion industry has sprung up. Doctors charge an average of $500 for an underground abortion — more than a month’s wages for doctors at state hospitals. Ironically, the opportunity for doctors to earn this significant salary supplement appears to be one reason women eligible for legal abortions get the runaround in state hospitals. The good news is that more women are paying attention, swelling the ranks of women’s studies classes, joining in protest letters to politicians, and showing up at street demonstrations including an annual “manifa” that takes place every International Women’s Day. Last year’s slogans included “Yes for rights to abortion, rights to contraception.” This year’s demonstration on March 8 will be closely watched by both the bishops and SLD politicians to assess the clout of the women’s rights groups. Peggy recently returned to Washington, D.C. from Warsaw, where she spent a decade reporting on the economic and political transitions in Central East Europe. This article was originally printed in Ms. Magazine, Spring 2003. www.msmagazine.com ABORTION RIGHTS GLOBALLY every number tells a story $7 BILLION Annual shortfall to meet all international familyplanning needs each year. 7 YEAR Prison sentence mandated for women in Kenya convicted of having an abortion. EVERY 7 MINUTES A woman somewhere in the world dies from an unsafe abortion. 30% - 40% Percentage of women in sub-Saharan Africa with unwanted pregnancies who die from unsafe abortions. 50% - 60% Percentage of women in gynecological wards of hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa who are receiving treatment for complications from unsafe abortions. $34 MILLION Amount of money withheld by the United States for U.N.-sponsored family-planning services, under the guise that the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) purportedly supports programs in rural China that coerce abortions. 800,000 Number of abortions that could be prevented with that $34 million. $1 MILLION Amount donated by concerned individuals - so far - to make up the UNFPA shortfall. 4.6 Annual supply of condoms available, on average, to each man in sub-Saharan Africa. 8 BILLION Estimated number of condoms required in developing countries and Eastern Europe to expand access for those in need. 30,000 Number of women in Africa who die each year as the result of unsafe abortions. 440,000 Number of women worldwide who died between 1995 and 2000 from complications after unsafe abortions. 1 The only vote in support of U.S.-proposed changes to the 1994 Cairo plan for population and development that would have removed references to “reproductive health” and “reproductive rights.” The voter: the United States. This was originally printed in Ms. Magazine, Summer 2003. Only 124 legal abortions were reported in Poland in 2001. Estimates of illegal abortions range from 80,000 to 200,000. Polish Radical Cheerleaders demonstrate for reproductive rights. Photo by Janek Skarzynski of the AFP. EMPIRE orchestrated the killing was voted back into office with a comfortable majority. Nobody has been punished for the genocide. Narendra Modi, architect of the pogrom and proud member of the RSS, has embarked on his second term as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. If he were Saddam Hussein each atrocity would have been on CNN. But since he’s not — and since the Indian “market” is open to global investors — the massacre is not even an embarrassing inconvenience. There are more than 100 million Muslims in India. A time bomb is ticking in our ancient land. All this to say that it is a myth that the free market breaks down national barriers. The free market does not threaten national sovereignty; it undermines democracy. As the disparity between the rich and the poor grows, the fight to corner resources intensifies. To push through their “sweetheart deals” — to corporatize the crops we grow, the water we drink, the air we breathe and the dreams we dream — corporate globalization needs an international confederation of loyal, corrupt, authoritarian governments in poorer countries to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies. Corporate globalization — or shall we call it by its name? — imperialism — needs a press that pretends to be free. It needs courts that pretend to dispense justice. Meanwhile, the countries of the North harden their borders and stockpile weapons of mass destruction. After all, they have to make sure that it’s only money, goods, patents and services that are globalized. Not the free movement of people. Not a respect for human rights. Not international treaties on racial discrimination or chemical and nuclear weapons or greenhouse gas emissions or climate change or — god forbid — justice. So this — all this — is empire. This loyal confederation, this obscene accumulation of power, this greatly increased distance between those who make the decisions and those who have to suffer them. Our fight, our goal, our vision of another world must be to eliminate that distance. So how do we resist empire? The good news is that we’re not doing too badly. There have been major victories. Here in Latin America you have had so many. In Bolivia, you have Cochabamba. In Peru, there was the uprising in Arequipa. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez is holding on, despite the U.S. government’s best efforts. And the world’s gaze is on the people of Argentina, who are trying to refashion a country from the ashes of the havoc wrought by the IMF. In India the movement against corporate globalization is gathering momentum and is poised to become the only real political force to counter religious fascism. As for corporate globalization’s glittering ambassadors — Enron, Bechtel, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen — where were they last year, and where are they now? And, of course, here in Brazil we must ask: Who was the president last year, and who is it now? Still, many of us have dark moments of hopelessness and despair. We know that under the spreading canopy of the War Against Terrorism, the men in suits are hard at work. While bombs rain down on us and cruise missiles skid across the skies, we know that contracts are being signed, patents are being registered, oil pipelines are being laid, natural resources are being plundered, water is being privatized, and George Bush is planning to go to war against Iraq. If we look at this conflict as a straightforward, eye-to-eye confrontation between empire and those of us who are resisting it, it might seem that we are losing. By Arundhati Roy But there is another way of looking at it. We, all of us gathered here, have, each in our own way, laid siege to empire. We may not have stopped it in its tracks — yet — but we have stripped it down. We have made it drop its mask. We have forced it into the open. It now stands before us on the world’s stage in all its brutish, iniquitous nakedness. Empire may well go to war, but it’s out in the open now — too ugly to behold its own reflection. Too ugly even to rally its own people. It won’t be long before the majority of American people become our allies. In Washington, a quarter of a million people marched against the war on Iraq. Each month, the protest is gathering momentum. Before Sept. 11, 2001, America had a secret history. Secret especially from its own people. But now America’s secrets are history, and its history is public knowledge. It’s street talk. Today, we know that every argument that is being used to escalate the war against Iraq is a lie. And the most ludicrous of them is the U.S. government’s deep commitment to bringing democracy to Iraq. Killing people to save them from dictatorship or ideological corruption is, of course, an old U.S. government sport. Here in Latin America, you know that better than most. Nobody doubts that Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator, a murderer (whose worst excesses were supported by the governments of the United States and Great Britain). There’s no doubt that Iraqis would be better off without him. But, then, the whole world would be better off without a certain Mr. Bush. In fact, he is far more dangerous than Saddam Hussein. So, should we bomb Bush out of the White House? It’s more than clear that Bush is determined to go to war against Iraq, regardless of the facts — and regardless of international public opinion. In its recruitment drive for allies, the United States is prepared to invent facts. The charade with weapons inspectors is the U.S. government’s offensive, insulting concession to some twisted form of international etiquette. It’s like leaving the “doggie door” open for last-minute “allies” or maybe the United Nations to crawl through. But for all intents and purposes, the new war against Iraq has begun. What can we do? We can hone our memory, we can learn from our history. We can continue to build public opinion until it becomes a deafening roar. We can turn the war on Iraq into a fishbowl of the U.S. government’s excesses. We can expose George Bush and Tony Blair — and their allies — for the cowardly baby killers, water poisoners and pusillanimous long-distance bombers that they are. We can re-invent civil disobedience in a million different ways. In other words, we can come up with a million ways of becoming a collective pain in the ass. When George Bush says, “You’re either with us, or you are with the terrorists,” we can say, “No thank you.” We can let him know that the people of the world do not need to choose between a Malevolent Mickey Mouse and the Mad Mullahs. Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To derive it. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness — and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling — their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Arundhati Roy received the 1997 Booker Prize for The God of Small Things. This piece can also be found in her latest book War Talk. LOUDmouth 15 LOUDmouth 8 SPOTLIGHT ON A LOCAL ACTIVIST “don’t give up. we will see change.” – maria guardado By Yazmin Araiza and Christine Petit M aria Guardado's life is an example of unwavering strength in the face of torture. In the early 1970s she became politically active at a turbulent time in her home country, El Salvador. Around this time, a civil war emerged. State-sponsored violence via the military and highly trained death squads were commonplace. The U.S. government played a large role in the killing and destruction that occurred during this time by pouring huge sums of money into the Latin American government. This money was used to back the military and prolong the civil war. During the civil war, approximately 80,000 civilians died or disappeared because of their political beliefs. Thousands more, like Maria, were tortured at the hands of death squads. The horrendous torture Maria endured did not beat her into submission. Rather, she was further radicalized. Although she sought asylum in the United States, she continues to fight for justice on many fronts in the "Third World city” of Los Angeles. She continues to be active in several organizations and can frequently be spotted at protests. Picking her out of a recent protest in L.A., we ran up to greet Maria like crazed fans seeking a rock star's autograph. Maria Guardado has been an inspiration to us since we heard her testimony at Cal State L.A. last year, and we cannot think of a woman who embodies the spirit of International Women's Day more than she does. ¿Cómo te envolviste en el movimiento político en El Salvador? Cuando empecé yo no quería quitar al gobierno. Yo empecé para ser voluntaria con el PAR (Partido Acción Renovadora) era un partido político en El Salvador que estaba corriendo para las elecciones presidenciales. Inicialmente yo empecé a ser voluntaria porque necesitaba el trabajo y el PAR me prometió que si se ganaban las elecciones me darían un trabajo de secretaria. Estaba desesperada por un trabajo porque dos de mis hermanas habían muerto y dejado cinco niños al cuidado de mi familia y mi madre estaba en una silla de ruedas. Necesitaba ayudar a mi familia de cualquier manera. En el año 1972 tres partidos políticos se unieron para poder ganar las elecciones presidenciales se llamaban UNO (Unión Nacional Opositora). Las elecciones de ese año se perdieron. Las elecciones de 1977 fueron muy grandes. El partido UNO otra vez corrió para la elección, pero pronto las elecciones presidenciales se convirtieron en una revolución. Muchas personas morían cada día y nosotros los activistas tuvimos que escondernos antes de ser capturados o asesinados. En el 12 de enero de 1980 fui secuestrada. Me torturaron por tres días, me dieron toques de electricidad en todo mi cuerpo, me violaron y me golpearon muchas veces. Pensé que me moría cuando me torturaban. Solo podía gritar al principio de cada una porque luego ya no podía con mi cuerpo se enmudeció del dolor. Algo que me acuerdo muy bien es que un anglo estaba dando las órdenes de mi tortura. Eso me dio coraje para sobrevivir y decirle a todo el mundo lo que estaba pasando. Cuando pensaron que estaba muerta, fueron a tirar mi cuerpo a los montes. Cuando me pude levantar me arastré a unas casas cercanas pidiendo ayuda pero nadie respondía a mis llantos. Miré a un taxista en la carretera y fui como pude. Le lloré, pidiéndole que me llevara a mi casa. Él tenía miedo de los policías porque era muy noche pero le lloré tanto que me llevó a mi casa. Ya que estaba en casa me dieron atención médica otros activistas porque no podía ir al hospital, los militares estaban buscando activistas en los hospitales, universidades y clínicas. Cuando pude, me fui a refugiar a Chiapas con mis cinco sobrinos. de los Estados Unidos. Nuestras familias se deshacen y a veces hasta nos morimos tratando de cruzar la línea cuando lo único que buscamos es solo una manera mejor de vivir. La razón que yo vine a los Estados Unidos fue porque me estaba quedando en un refugio en el Sur de América yo di mi testimonio y las personas que se encargaban del refugio decidieron que era más seguro para mí en los Estados Unidos. La organización Santiago que se enfoca a ayudar a Salvadoreños y Guatemaltecos me ayudaron bastante. Me llevaron de iglesia a iglesia hasta que llegué a los Estados Unidos. Yo di mi testimonio por todos los Estados Unidos pero decidí venir a Los Angeles donde ya tenía familia y pronto obtuve mi estatus de refugiada política. ¿Por qué decidiste venir a los Estados Unidos? Personas del tercer mundo no vienen a los Estados Unidos no porque queramos sino porque somos forzados a venir porque hay tanta pobreza y las guerras que a veces son creadas con ayuda How and why did you get involved in the political movement of El Salvador? When I first started I did not want to overthrow the government. I began volunteering with PAR (Renovated Action Party), a political LOUDmouth 9 ¿Tu familia alguna vez desaprobó que contribuyeras con el movimiento político? Por supuesto, mi familia me pidió que dejara la política muchas veces. Yo ya estaba muy conciente politicamente para abandonar el movimento. Me dolía dejar a mi madre y a mi familia para organizar, pero yo me di al movimiento con esperanza de hacer cambios. Es muy importante que pelemos por nuestros derechos humanos pero es mucho más importante en el tercer mundo. ¿Qué te dio esperanza después que te capturaron? Quería que las personas supieran de la pobreza y la corrupción del gobierno del Salvador. Quería decirle a todo el mundo que la intervención de los Estados Unidos en El Salvador hizo las cosas peores, una guerra que hubiera durado de tres a cinco años pero duró diez años. Yo quiero que las personas sepan lo que ocurrió en El Salvador. ¿En honor del Día Internacional de la Mujer, qué le quiere decir a las mujeres del mundo? ¿Qué va a pasar con el mundo si no organizamos nuestras comunidades? Tenemos que continuar educándonos para ayudar que todo el mundo levante armas contra el capitalismo y por la humanidad. Para crear un mundo mejor para las generaciones del futuro. No importa que tan duras sean las situaciones no dejen de luchar para obtener un cambio. University of Texas, El Paso, spoke of the stereotypes portrayed by the government. The authorities frame the women as those whose “skirts are too short” and whose “lipstick is too red.” Blame is also placed on women who go out at night, which dismisses the fact that working-class women often have jobs that require late shifts. When Norma Andrade inquired about her missing daughter, the police insulted her. They told Andrade that she “did not know who her daughter was going around with.” Government officials were not any better. “[The officials] said, ‘Your daughter is on the streets; she’s a bitch; she’ll come back someday.’ They said, ‘Good women are in the house. Bad women are on the streets.’” The mothers of the victims are vilified by authorities. They are framed as viejas escandalosas (scandal-mongering women) when they inquire about their daughters. Furthermore, the mothers are often threatened when they speak up about their daughters, creating a silence in the city about the crimes. “The authorities told me, ‘You have one child still alive; you better shut up or she’ll end up like your other daughter,’” Andrade related. The mothers and activists who came to speak at the conference received death threats for participating. According to Andrade, all of the moms are being followed back in Mexico. A 65-year-old mother was followed, then beaten by three people. The police claimed it was a robbery. FIGHTING FROM ALL FRONTS There have been many responses to the murders in Juárez. The first groups to form in reaction to the murders consisted of the mothers and relatives of the victims. They banded together to form grassroots groups such as Voces Sin Eco, Mujeres Por Juárez, 8 de Marzo, and Casa Amiga (the only rape and abuse crisis shelter in Juárez). The groups assisted the mothers with their basic needs, such as walking through the desert to search for missing daughters and bringing the remains to forensic specialists. They also staged protests and wrote letters to the government. The newest of these groups, Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa, was co-founded by Norma Andrade in February 2001. Another group, Justicia para Nuestras Hijas, is a Chihuahuabased group formed after bodies of young women, patterned after the Juárez crimes, were found in the city Chihuahua. The issue of the Juárez crimes gained major international attention in 2003 when Amnesty International released a report titled “Intolerable Deaths, Mexico: 10 years of murder and missing women in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.” The report was released during an international press conference in Juárez on Aug. 11, 2003. It called on the Mexican government to improve the policing and stop these murders. While this has drawn much press coverage and public awareness, the killers seem unaffected. A day after the press conference, two more bodies turned up dead. Moreover, the governor of Chihuahua, Patricio Martinez Garcia, responded to the Amnesty report by saying, "I want to ask Amnesty International how many murders there are every year in the state of California. Don't come to us with this archaic position and say that only in Juárez are there women murdered." Another way the activism has gone international is through what writer, performance artist and associate professor at Columbia University School of the Arts Coco Fusco calls “hacktivism,” which entails the usage of electronic disturbance as a form of protest. The “virtual sit-in” that took place involved FloodNet, a program that allows online participants to freeze up the Mexican government’s computer server. “This is like blocking the streets in front of the White House, but we’re blocking the bandwidth in front of the government server,” explained Fusco, who initiated the FloodNet actions. “It’s appealing to young people who use computers to play games who don’t want to march and vigil,” said Fusco. Graciela Sánchez, director and cofounder of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, does not agree with reliance on technology for activism. “Some cyber connections are disastrous. People are not talking to each other face to face anymore, not even talking on the phone,” Sánchez said. She explained that besides the fact that many people do not have access to such technological tools, the “hard stuff” of political organizing is the personal interactions, where activists must take into account one another’s sexism, racism and homophobia. “[In person] is where people say, ‘Hey, you’re talking too much,’” Sánchez noted. This keeps hierarchies from forming within activist groups. She also mentioned that trust must be built in person. When sending e-mails, people are cautious with their words, and distrust can easily shatter movements when organizers have met each other only through e-mails. Sánchez believes that community building is the key to helping the situation in Juárez. Others believe in working from the top down. Congresswoman Hilda Solis of California, the only U.S. Congress member who has dedicated energy to the Juárez murders so far, believes that we should get more Congress members involved in order to affect Secretary of State Colin Powell and President Bush. “I don’t think it’ll take all that much work. We just have to do it,” said Solis. GLOBALIZATION AND JUÁREZ While the Mexican government and police are a source of the problem, Gaspar de Alba points out the role of those on the other side of the border. “We’re not conscious of the fact that women have died making your Walkman, your clothes, your shoes,” Gaspar de Alba said. Since NAFTA was signed between the United States and Mexico in 1993, women have been drawn toward the maquiladoras in Juárez, which embody many dreams and promises of “being right next to the wonderland.” NAFTA allows U.S. companies to follow Mexican labor laws instead of U.S. laws, which is why maquiladora workers are paid an average of $5 per day, according to Gaspar de Alba. The majority of these maquiladora workers are young women. They are viewed as disposable to the foreign companies. “For every girl killed, there are 25 girls waiting in line to take her place,” said Gaspar de Alba. Thus, the companies have taken no responsibility for the safety of their employees so far. Women in Juárez continue to endanger their lives to manufacture cheap goods for foreign consumers. According to Señorita Extraviada, over 80 percent of the maquiladoras in Juárez are U.S.-owned. On Valentine’s Day 2001, Norma Andrade’s 17-year-old daughter disappeared after leaving work at the maquiladora. On the same day, North Americans spent an estimated $2 billion on goods and services, according to the Gartner Group. The deaths in Juárez reflect a global economy that treats its piece workers (and peace workers) as dispensable units, where company owners base their actions on sales gains and may remain distant and unaccountable for their workers’ safety. “These crimes are not just a Mexican problem,” Gaspar de Alba said. For updates, visit www.juarezwomen.com. To help, visit www.amigosdemujeres.org. Emily is the editor in chief of UCLA’s feminist magazine, FEM. Become a co-conspirator: [email protected]. LOUDmouth 14 Bejarano, a professor of criminal justice at New Mexico State University and the cofounder of Amigos de las Mujeres de Juárez, a New Mexico-based nongovernmental organization dedicated to assisting Juárez women. Clothes found in the desert are often burned. Families of victims sometimes get information from the police, then later return to find that the same files cannot be found anymore. “The general population in Juárez is scared of the police. Why would they call the police if the police are so corrupted? People witness crimes, but are not willing to talk to police,” explained Lorena Mendez, a Fox 11 News investigative reporter and co-founder of the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Justice and Women’s Rights in Ciudad Juárez. The experience of Maria, a mother featured in Señorita Extraviada, helps us understand why the crimes are so difficult to solve. When she went to the police to inquire about her daughter’s death, she was harassed by a female officer, then raped by a male officer. Maria was later followed near her house after she spoke out about her experience. She ran inside and wanted to call the police, but then remembered that they are just as dangerous as the criminals. Dolores Huerta asked maquiladora owners what they have been doing to protect their employees, the owners showed her three posters that they have been displaying near bus stops to ensure the women’s safety. The first poster had a picture of a woman with ¡Cuídate! (Be careful!) printed on it. The second one read in Spanish, “Don’t wear your blouses too tightly.” The third one said, “Walk in areas with street lights.” According to Huerta, there are no street lights around the shantytowns. These “tips” suggest that the women are responsible for their own safety. Comments about clothing imply that rape and murder are consequences of the victims’ choice of provocative dress, not the pathology of the assailant. The media often focuses on whether or not these women are or were prostitutes, as if that would justify their death. Irasema Coronado, an assistant professor of political science at the THE THEORIES According to Diana Washington Valdez, an El Paso Times reporter who has been following the cases since 1995, there have been two sets of theories about who the culprits are: pre-2002 and post-2002. The earlier theories have pointed to snuff filmmakers due to the women’s similar physiques, cult murderers due to the matching semicircle shapes carved into some of the women’s backs, gangs, serial killers, copycats and organ traffickers. The more recent lines of investigation point to groups of serial killers, drug dealers of the local cartels, a band of powerful men the authorities dare not accuse and participants in organized crime. “These are high-profile, untouchable people,” said Valdez. She explained that corruption is often “topdown,” that the murderers enjoy a level of impunity from the government due to their social status. “The authorities know who’s doing it. They’re just not doing anything about it,” said Valdez. Why did you decide to come to the United States? People from Third World countries do not want to come to the United States. We are forced to come because of the poverty and wars often created with the help of the U.S. I was lucky, but a lot of us end up dying at the border trying to find a better living. Our families are also torn apart. I decided to come to the U.S. when I was staying at a shelter for South Americans. I shared my testimony, and the people running the shelter decided to get me out of Mexico for safety reasons. The Santiago Organization is focused on helping people from El Salvador and Guatemala, and this was the organization that mainly helped me. I went from church to church until I got to the U.S. I was giving my testimony all over the U.S and then decided to settle in Los Angeles where I have family. Shortly after, I was able to obtain my status as a political refugee. Did your family ever disapprove of your political involvement? Of course, they asked me to stop many times. But once someone is conscious of what it is to fight for human rights, you give yourself to the movement. Do you think it was not painful leaving my mother and my family to go into hiding? It was very painful, but I gave myself to the movement with hope to see change. It is necessary for us to fight for our rights everywhere, but especially in Third World countries. BLAMING THE WOMEN When University of California Regent and co-founder of United Farm Workers LOUDmouth 13 party in El Salvador running for the presidential elections. I initially started volunteering because I needed a job and PAR promised me they would get me a job as a secretary when they won the presidential elections. I desperately needed a job since two of my sisters had passed away, leaving five of their young children for me and my family to take care of. Plus, my mother was sick and had to be in a wheelchair. I needed to help my family in any way I could. In 1972, three political parties united to fight the presidential election in El Salvador. They were named UNO (United National Opposition). UNO lost the 1972 election and decided to run again in 1977. The 1977 election was the big one. This time the presidential election became more like a revolution. A lot of people died every day. All the activists had to go into hiding or we would get captured and tortured and even killed for information. Sure enough, on Jan. 12, 1980 I was captured. I was tortured for three days. They tortured me by raping me several times, giving me electric shocks all over my body and by beating me endlessly. I felt I was going to die. I would scream only at the beginning of every set of torture because my body would soon be in too much pain to be able to scream. Something I clearly remember about my torture is that there was an Anglo man giving the orders. That motivated me to stay alive. I wanted to tell the whole world what was happening. When they thought I was dead, they dumped my body by a road. Once I was able to get up, I dragged myself to some houses begging for help, but no one responded to my pleas. Then, I noticed a taxicab dropping someone off by the road. I went to the taxi driver and begged him to take me home. He was afraid of the police but I guess he felt sorry for me so he did take me home. Once I got home, I received medical attention from other activists because I could not go to a hospital or they would really kill me. The military was checking all clinics, universities and hospitals for signs of activists. As soon as I could, I left to Chiapas to go into hiding along with my five nephews. Norma Andrade (right) holds a photo of her 17-year-old daughter Alejandra, who was murdered after leaving her work at the maquiladora. Photo by Carol Petersen. the United States in El Salvador made things worse. Because of U.S. intervention, the war did not last three to five years. Instead, it lasted 10 years. I wanted to make sure that everybody knows what really happened in El Salvador. In honor of International Women's Day, what would you like to tell the women of the world? What would become of the world if we did not organize our communities? We need to continue educating ourselves to help the world rise up and fight for humanity and against capitalism to create a better world for the coming generations. It does not matter how hard it gets sometimes. Don’t give up. We will see change. If you would like to buy a copy of the video Testimony: The Maria Guardado Story, please contact Randy Vasquez at (323) 6509083. Proceeds will benefit the Farabundo Marti para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) in El Salvador. In addition to being a student activist, Yazmin is an incredible painter. Send her some color at [email protected]. Christine thinks politicians should be replaced with activists. Cast votes her way at [email protected]. Tuesday, April 20, 2004 6 - 10 pm Student Housing California State University, Los Angeles Join us for this special event to help end sexual violence. The evening will include entertainment, speakers, a candlelight march around campus, and an open microphone for survivors to speak out. For more information, call the Cross Cultural Centers Office at 323-343-5001. What gave you hope after your capture and torture? I wanted to speak up about the poverty and the corruption in El Salvador. I wanted to tell the whole world that the intervention of LOUDmouth 10 PALESTINIAN WOMEN the murders of maquiladora workers in ciudad juárez, mexico By Maria Neal W hen one thinks about crusaders for women’s rights, Palestinian women living under Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are not the first to come to mind. In fact, submission in the midst of oppression, political and familial, seems more characteristic of this group. Women in occupied territories live in a patriarchal society in which both their ethnicity and gender place them at a disadvantage. Their political and social positions make them especially vulnerable to exploitation; Palestinian women from occupied territories are the lowest-paid wage earners in the region. Honor killings, underreported in light of civil unrest, have not diminished with time but have actually increased. This past November, a woman in Gaza confessed to a reporter that she did what “any good Palestinian mother would do” — murdered her own daughter in order to restore family honor after the teen, pregnant and unwed, refused to commit suicide. This hardly seems a landscape in which advocates of women’s rights could be born and prosper. However, in the midst of severe oppression, women in Palestine have been organizing themselves and others in the fight for national liberation and gender equality. Historically, Palestinian women have played key roles in nonviolent resistance to British and Israeli occupation by organizing and participating in marches, demonstrations, peace conferences, petitions and letter campaigns. During the first Intifada, which began in 1987 and was a six-year insurgence against Israeli occupation, Palestinian women established their own industries, including baking bread, making cheese and building community gardens in order to make possible the boycott of Israeli goods. In doing so, they also helped to build a local Palestinian economy. Women’s groups such as the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling have sought to raise international awareness as well as offer solutions to local community problems, both in terms of immediate crisis relief and long-standing goals. In addition to supporting political and humanitarian efforts, Palestinian women play crucial roles for the subsistence of their families. This has been especially true since the formation of Israel in 1948. As many Palestinian men have been injured, imprisoned and killed during the Israeli occupation, women often provide the sole source of income for their families. In this way, the occupation has helped to foster a social environment more hospitable to the development of equality for women. However, the impact of Israeli occupation on the feminist movement in Palestine is multifaceted. While Palestine’s struggle for independence has afforded women the opportunity to fill a variety of important roles within society, would-be social gains have been restricted by the occupied territories’ failure to obtain political autonomy. Political efforts concentrate on disputes with foreign powers and the fight for liberation at the expense of domestic issues. Without the means to introduce legislation that can be passed into law and effectively enforced by a sovereign state, women’s rights have been seriously impeded. In the wake of the Oslo Accord, many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have become involved in humanitarian LOUDmouth 11 FACTORY FEMICIDE efforts in Palestine. While offering much-needed humanitarian relief, these organizations will not aid liberation efforts. This has negatively affected feminist efforts in occupied territories, as real and long-term changes for women hinge on Palestinian selfgovernance. Women’s organizations, seeking monetary aid from NGOs, often change their agendas and divorce themselves from national liberation efforts in order to become eligible for support. Organizations end up treating symptoms of occupation while restricting themselves from making a substantial impact on the causal forces. In spite of this, some encouraging signs persist. A scientific poll conducted by Palestinian Working Women in 2002 revealed that over 70 percent of Palestinian women believe that achieving equality for women is the task of the entire society. More than half of those polled supported the introduction of a unified electoral women’s slate and felt that election law should include a women’s quota. According to Maria Holt of Cambridge University, “Women are now represented in most sections of [Palestinian] society: They are university lecturers, poets, doctors, business leaders, and members of the Palestine Legislative Council.” Besides their involvement in the PLC, Palestinian women have created a mock parliament called Palestinian Parliament: Women and Legislation whose goal is to dispel negative attitudes about women’s leadership and decision-making capabilities. Palestinian women continue to seek peace and justice in their lives and for their communities, bringing fresh ideas as well as a willingness to listen to Israeli women and one another and work together in order to find a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Maria comes through in a pinch. Send her your praises: [email protected]. the poet of palestine Fadwa Tuqan died in her hometown of Nablus on Dec. 12 of last year. She was 86. During her life, she received numerous awards for her poetry. She will be remembered for her undying love for the land and people of Palestine. Enough for Me By Fadwa Tuqan Enough for me to die on her earth be buried in her to melt and vanish into her soil then sprout forth as a flower played with by a child from my country. Enough for me to remain in my country's embrace to be in her close as a handful of dust a sprig of grass a flower. By Emily Ng O n Valentine’s Day 2001, 17-yearold Alejandra did not come home after her shift at the maquiladora. Her nude body was found in a deserted lot seven days later. She had been kept alive and raped for six days, then strangled and dumped off. “Alejandra dreamed of becoming a reporter,” said Alejandra’s mother, Norma Andrade, her voice cracking as she sobbed and, in Spanish, described her “timid, shy, always daydreaming” daughter. The circumstances of Alejandra’s murder are not unique. Over 370 bodies of women and girls have been found within Juárez, a city in Chihuahua, Mexico, since 1993. These were not just random killings. All the victims were poor, petite, darkskinned, working-class young women, most of whom work in maquiladoras. (The maquiladora program allows foreign manufacturers to send production components into Mexico duty-free, where they are assembled and usually reexported.) The source of the crime wave has not been pinpointed. Most of the murderers have not been convicted. Most mothers do not have the equipment or support to find their daughters’ bodies. Due to state corruption and devaluation of the young women’s lives, these crimes have been systematically ignored by Mexican authorities. The global economic context in which these maquiladoras are situated also adds an international dimension to the crime. After years of small-scale organizing among the victims’ mothers and relatives, the crimes have finally come to international attention. Andrade was one of three mothers who participated in the three-day international conference titled “The Maquiladora Murders: Or, Who is Killing the Women of Juárez?” that took place from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2 at UCLA. The conference included presentations from victims’ mothers, forensic specialists, politicians, journalists, academics, artists and activists from the United States and Mexico; a film screening of Señorita Extraviada, a documentary about the murders; and art exhibits at the Kerckhoff Gallery and Fowler Museum. Additionally, the entire conference was broadcast online, and a simultaneous “virtual sit-in” drew tens of thousands of supporters from around the world. Two women sitting behind a small glass screen inside the Ackerman Grand Ballroom provided a Spanish translation for the audience via wireless headsets. The crowd consisted of high-school students, college students, academics, journalists and others. Alicia Gaspar de Alba, associate director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and associate professor of Chicana/o studies, organized the event. “It takes power to talk to power. That’s why the conference took place at UCLA,” explained Gaspar de Alba. With the co-sponsorship of UCLA student organizations such as Ni Una Más!, Razawomyn, Conciencia Libre, la Gente de Aztlán, and others, Gaspar de Alba put on the conference not only to inform the community, but to increase the burden of responsibility among academics and politicians who have been unwilling to “dirty their hands” with this topic for 10 years. “The activists are there; it’s the academics that are missing,” she said. “Let’s bring our grant money and use it to go into an in-depth analysis of social, cultural, economic and psychological aspects of the Juárez border that might explain why these murders are happening to this particular demographic of women.” THE MURDERS There have been numerous theories constructed to make sense of these crimes. All of the women targeted have been young, working-class, petite and dark-skinned. Most of them immigrated to Juárez from the southern parts of Mexico to work in maquiladoras that opened after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in 1993. Juárez, a city of two million, is located across the border from El Paso, Texas. Most of the victims were in their teens or twenties; the youngest was a 5-year-old girl found with stab wounds and her eyes cut out. Most of the bodies were found in the city, places people walk past every day: in the bushes, near railroads, buried in drainpipes and dropped off in the desert. Candice Skrapec, a forensic psychologist who has researched incarcerated serial murderers in different countries for the past 18 years, said that the unique element of these murders is the way men are killing repeatedly in groups. “Most serial killers act alone. It’s not wise to include others because others can become witness, [thus leading to the killer’s] own undoing,” said Skrapec. This unusual tactic may also reveal something about the victims. “[The group killings] suggest that the value of women is so low that it’s really not such a big deal,” explained Skrapec. These killings have been deemed “femicides,” as the common term “homicide” does not account for the misogynistic and sexually violent nature of these crimes. THE POLICE The Mexican police, who are supposed to be protecting these women, are neither equipped nor genuine in their investigations, according to Skrapec. When she went to the police station, she found that there was not even an evidence room. Other panelists echoed similar experiences: finding police stations with no maps and no photos of the women. Skrapec was once told that the weapon used to bludgeon a woman, covered with blood and hair, was thrown out by a janitor. Without evidence, the convictions are made the “traditional way” — by confessions. So far, many false accusations and convictions have been made. Bus drivers, relatives of victims and foreigners have been tortured by the police into making fake confessions. The police have not only lost but destroyed evidence, said Cynthia LOUDmouth 12 PALESTINIAN WOMEN the murders of maquiladora workers in ciudad juárez, mexico By Maria Neal W hen one thinks about crusaders for women’s rights, Palestinian women living under Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are not the first to come to mind. In fact, submission in the midst of oppression, political and familial, seems more characteristic of this group. Women in occupied territories live in a patriarchal society in which both their ethnicity and gender place them at a disadvantage. Their political and social positions make them especially vulnerable to exploitation; Palestinian women from occupied territories are the lowest-paid wage earners in the region. Honor killings, underreported in light of civil unrest, have not diminished with time but have actually increased. This past November, a woman in Gaza confessed to a reporter that she did what “any good Palestinian mother would do” — murdered her own daughter in order to restore family honor after the teen, pregnant and unwed, refused to commit suicide. This hardly seems a landscape in which advocates of women’s rights could be born and prosper. However, in the midst of severe oppression, women in Palestine have been organizing themselves and others in the fight for national liberation and gender equality. Historically, Palestinian women have played key roles in nonviolent resistance to British and Israeli occupation by organizing and participating in marches, demonstrations, peace conferences, petitions and letter campaigns. During the first Intifada, which began in 1987 and was a six-year insurgence against Israeli occupation, Palestinian women established their own industries, including baking bread, making cheese and building community gardens in order to make possible the boycott of Israeli goods. In doing so, they also helped to build a local Palestinian economy. Women’s groups such as the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling have sought to raise international awareness as well as offer solutions to local community problems, both in terms of immediate crisis relief and long-standing goals. In addition to supporting political and humanitarian efforts, Palestinian women play crucial roles for the subsistence of their families. This has been especially true since the formation of Israel in 1948. As many Palestinian men have been injured, imprisoned and killed during the Israeli occupation, women often provide the sole source of income for their families. In this way, the occupation has helped to foster a social environment more hospitable to the development of equality for women. However, the impact of Israeli occupation on the feminist movement in Palestine is multifaceted. While Palestine’s struggle for independence has afforded women the opportunity to fill a variety of important roles within society, would-be social gains have been restricted by the occupied territories’ failure to obtain political autonomy. Political efforts concentrate on disputes with foreign powers and the fight for liberation at the expense of domestic issues. Without the means to introduce legislation that can be passed into law and effectively enforced by a sovereign state, women’s rights have been seriously impeded. In the wake of the Oslo Accord, many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have become involved in humanitarian LOUDmouth 11 FACTORY FEMICIDE efforts in Palestine. While offering much-needed humanitarian relief, these organizations will not aid liberation efforts. This has negatively affected feminist efforts in occupied territories, as real and long-term changes for women hinge on Palestinian selfgovernance. Women’s organizations, seeking monetary aid from NGOs, often change their agendas and divorce themselves from national liberation efforts in order to become eligible for support. Organizations end up treating symptoms of occupation while restricting themselves from making a substantial impact on the causal forces. In spite of this, some encouraging signs persist. A scientific poll conducted by Palestinian Working Women in 2002 revealed that over 70 percent of Palestinian women believe that achieving equality for women is the task of the entire society. More than half of those polled supported the introduction of a unified electoral women’s slate and felt that election law should include a women’s quota. According to Maria Holt of Cambridge University, “Women are now represented in most sections of [Palestinian] society: They are university lecturers, poets, doctors, business leaders, and members of the Palestine Legislative Council.” Besides their involvement in the PLC, Palestinian women have created a mock parliament called Palestinian Parliament: Women and Legislation whose goal is to dispel negative attitudes about women’s leadership and decision-making capabilities. Palestinian women continue to seek peace and justice in their lives and for their communities, bringing fresh ideas as well as a willingness to listen to Israeli women and one another and work together in order to find a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Maria comes through in a pinch. Send her your praises: [email protected]. the poet of palestine Fadwa Tuqan died in her hometown of Nablus on Dec. 12 of last year. She was 86. During her life, she received numerous awards for her poetry. She will be remembered for her undying love for the land and people of Palestine. Enough for Me By Fadwa Tuqan Enough for me to die on her earth be buried in her to melt and vanish into her soil then sprout forth as a flower played with by a child from my country. Enough for me to remain in my country's embrace to be in her close as a handful of dust a sprig of grass a flower. By Emily Ng O n Valentine’s Day 2001, 17-yearold Alejandra did not come home after her shift at the maquiladora. Her nude body was found in a deserted lot seven days later. She had been kept alive and raped for six days, then strangled and dumped off. “Alejandra dreamed of becoming a reporter,” said Alejandra’s mother, Norma Andrade, her voice cracking as she sobbed and, in Spanish, described her “timid, shy, always daydreaming” daughter. The circumstances of Alejandra’s murder are not unique. Over 370 bodies of women and girls have been found within Juárez, a city in Chihuahua, Mexico, since 1993. These were not just random killings. All the victims were poor, petite, darkskinned, working-class young women, most of whom work in maquiladoras. (The maquiladora program allows foreign manufacturers to send production components into Mexico duty-free, where they are assembled and usually reexported.) The source of the crime wave has not been pinpointed. Most of the murderers have not been convicted. Most mothers do not have the equipment or support to find their daughters’ bodies. Due to state corruption and devaluation of the young women’s lives, these crimes have been systematically ignored by Mexican authorities. The global economic context in which these maquiladoras are situated also adds an international dimension to the crime. After years of small-scale organizing among the victims’ mothers and relatives, the crimes have finally come to international attention. Andrade was one of three mothers who participated in the three-day international conference titled “The Maquiladora Murders: Or, Who is Killing the Women of Juárez?” that took place from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2 at UCLA. The conference included presentations from victims’ mothers, forensic specialists, politicians, journalists, academics, artists and activists from the United States and Mexico; a film screening of Señorita Extraviada, a documentary about the murders; and art exhibits at the Kerckhoff Gallery and Fowler Museum. Additionally, the entire conference was broadcast online, and a simultaneous “virtual sit-in” drew tens of thousands of supporters from around the world. Two women sitting behind a small glass screen inside the Ackerman Grand Ballroom provided a Spanish translation for the audience via wireless headsets. The crowd consisted of high-school students, college students, academics, journalists and others. Alicia Gaspar de Alba, associate director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and associate professor of Chicana/o studies, organized the event. “It takes power to talk to power. That’s why the conference took place at UCLA,” explained Gaspar de Alba. With the co-sponsorship of UCLA student organizations such as Ni Una Más!, Razawomyn, Conciencia Libre, la Gente de Aztlán, and others, Gaspar de Alba put on the conference not only to inform the community, but to increase the burden of responsibility among academics and politicians who have been unwilling to “dirty their hands” with this topic for 10 years. “The activists are there; it’s the academics that are missing,” she said. “Let’s bring our grant money and use it to go into an in-depth analysis of social, cultural, economic and psychological aspects of the Juárez border that might explain why these murders are happening to this particular demographic of women.” THE MURDERS There have been numerous theories constructed to make sense of these crimes. All of the women targeted have been young, working-class, petite and dark-skinned. Most of them immigrated to Juárez from the southern parts of Mexico to work in maquiladoras that opened after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in 1993. Juárez, a city of two million, is located across the border from El Paso, Texas. Most of the victims were in their teens or twenties; the youngest was a 5-year-old girl found with stab wounds and her eyes cut out. Most of the bodies were found in the city, places people walk past every day: in the bushes, near railroads, buried in drainpipes and dropped off in the desert. Candice Skrapec, a forensic psychologist who has researched incarcerated serial murderers in different countries for the past 18 years, said that the unique element of these murders is the way men are killing repeatedly in groups. “Most serial killers act alone. It’s not wise to include others because others can become witness, [thus leading to the killer’s] own undoing,” said Skrapec. This unusual tactic may also reveal something about the victims. “[The group killings] suggest that the value of women is so low that it’s really not such a big deal,” explained Skrapec. These killings have been deemed “femicides,” as the common term “homicide” does not account for the misogynistic and sexually violent nature of these crimes. THE POLICE The Mexican police, who are supposed to be protecting these women, are neither equipped nor genuine in their investigations, according to Skrapec. When she went to the police station, she found that there was not even an evidence room. Other panelists echoed similar experiences: finding police stations with no maps and no photos of the women. Skrapec was once told that the weapon used to bludgeon a woman, covered with blood and hair, was thrown out by a janitor. Without evidence, the convictions are made the “traditional way” — by confessions. So far, many false accusations and convictions have been made. Bus drivers, relatives of victims and foreigners have been tortured by the police into making fake confessions. The police have not only lost but destroyed evidence, said Cynthia LOUDmouth 12 Bejarano, a professor of criminal justice at New Mexico State University and the cofounder of Amigos de las Mujeres de Juárez, a New Mexico-based nongovernmental organization dedicated to assisting Juárez women. Clothes found in the desert are often burned. Families of victims sometimes get information from the police, then later return to find that the same files cannot be found anymore. “The general population in Juárez is scared of the police. Why would they call the police if the police are so corrupted? People witness crimes, but are not willing to talk to police,” explained Lorena Mendez, a Fox 11 News investigative reporter and co-founder of the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Justice and Women’s Rights in Ciudad Juárez. The experience of Maria, a mother featured in Señorita Extraviada, helps us understand why the crimes are so difficult to solve. When she went to the police to inquire about her daughter’s death, she was harassed by a female officer, then raped by a male officer. Maria was later followed near her house after she spoke out about her experience. She ran inside and wanted to call the police, but then remembered that they are just as dangerous as the criminals. Dolores Huerta asked maquiladora owners what they have been doing to protect their employees, the owners showed her three posters that they have been displaying near bus stops to ensure the women’s safety. The first poster had a picture of a woman with ¡Cuídate! (Be careful!) printed on it. The second one read in Spanish, “Don’t wear your blouses too tightly.” The third one said, “Walk in areas with street lights.” According to Huerta, there are no street lights around the shantytowns. These “tips” suggest that the women are responsible for their own safety. Comments about clothing imply that rape and murder are consequences of the victims’ choice of provocative dress, not the pathology of the assailant. The media often focuses on whether or not these women are or were prostitutes, as if that would justify their death. Irasema Coronado, an assistant professor of political science at the THE THEORIES According to Diana Washington Valdez, an El Paso Times reporter who has been following the cases since 1995, there have been two sets of theories about who the culprits are: pre-2002 and post-2002. The earlier theories have pointed to snuff filmmakers due to the women’s similar physiques, cult murderers due to the matching semicircle shapes carved into some of the women’s backs, gangs, serial killers, copycats and organ traffickers. The more recent lines of investigation point to groups of serial killers, drug dealers of the local cartels, a band of powerful men the authorities dare not accuse and participants in organized crime. “These are high-profile, untouchable people,” said Valdez. She explained that corruption is often “topdown,” that the murderers enjoy a level of impunity from the government due to their social status. “The authorities know who’s doing it. They’re just not doing anything about it,” said Valdez. Why did you decide to come to the United States? People from Third World countries do not want to come to the United States. We are forced to come because of the poverty and wars often created with the help of the U.S. I was lucky, but a lot of us end up dying at the border trying to find a better living. Our families are also torn apart. I decided to come to the U.S. when I was staying at a shelter for South Americans. I shared my testimony, and the people running the shelter decided to get me out of Mexico for safety reasons. The Santiago Organization is focused on helping people from El Salvador and Guatemala, and this was the organization that mainly helped me. I went from church to church until I got to the U.S. I was giving my testimony all over the U.S and then decided to settle in Los Angeles where I have family. Shortly after, I was able to obtain my status as a political refugee. Did your family ever disapprove of your political involvement? Of course, they asked me to stop many times. But once someone is conscious of what it is to fight for human rights, you give yourself to the movement. Do you think it was not painful leaving my mother and my family to go into hiding? It was very painful, but I gave myself to the movement with hope to see change. It is necessary for us to fight for our rights everywhere, but especially in Third World countries. BLAMING THE WOMEN When University of California Regent and co-founder of United Farm Workers LOUDmouth 13 party in El Salvador running for the presidential elections. I initially started volunteering because I needed a job and PAR promised me they would get me a job as a secretary when they won the presidential elections. I desperately needed a job since two of my sisters had passed away, leaving five of their young children for me and my family to take care of. Plus, my mother was sick and had to be in a wheelchair. I needed to help my family in any way I could. In 1972, three political parties united to fight the presidential election in El Salvador. They were named UNO (United National Opposition). UNO lost the 1972 election and decided to run again in 1977. The 1977 election was the big one. This time the presidential election became more like a revolution. A lot of people died every day. All the activists had to go into hiding or we would get captured and tortured and even killed for information. Sure enough, on Jan. 12, 1980 I was captured. I was tortured for three days. They tortured me by raping me several times, giving me electric shocks all over my body and by beating me endlessly. I felt I was going to die. I would scream only at the beginning of every set of torture because my body would soon be in too much pain to be able to scream. Something I clearly remember about my torture is that there was an Anglo man giving the orders. That motivated me to stay alive. I wanted to tell the whole world what was happening. When they thought I was dead, they dumped my body by a road. Once I was able to get up, I dragged myself to some houses begging for help, but no one responded to my pleas. Then, I noticed a taxicab dropping someone off by the road. I went to the taxi driver and begged him to take me home. He was afraid of the police but I guess he felt sorry for me so he did take me home. Once I got home, I received medical attention from other activists because I could not go to a hospital or they would really kill me. The military was checking all clinics, universities and hospitals for signs of activists. As soon as I could, I left to Chiapas to go into hiding along with my five nephews. Norma Andrade (right) holds a photo of her 17-year-old daughter Alejandra, who was murdered after leaving her work at the maquiladora. Photo by Carol Petersen. the United States in El Salvador made things worse. Because of U.S. intervention, the war did not last three to five years. Instead, it lasted 10 years. I wanted to make sure that everybody knows what really happened in El Salvador. In honor of International Women's Day, what would you like to tell the women of the world? What would become of the world if we did not organize our communities? We need to continue educating ourselves to help the world rise up and fight for humanity and against capitalism to create a better world for the coming generations. It does not matter how hard it gets sometimes. Don’t give up. We will see change. If you would like to buy a copy of the video Testimony: The Maria Guardado Story, please contact Randy Vasquez at (323) 6509083. Proceeds will benefit the Farabundo Marti para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) in El Salvador. In addition to being a student activist, Yazmin is an incredible painter. Send her some color at [email protected]. Christine thinks politicians should be replaced with activists. Cast votes her way at [email protected]. Tuesday, April 20, 2004 6 - 10 pm Student Housing California State University, Los Angeles Join us for this special event to help end sexual violence. The evening will include entertainment, speakers, a candlelight march around campus, and an open microphone for survivors to speak out. For more information, call the Cross Cultural Centers Office at 323-343-5001. What gave you hope after your capture and torture? I wanted to speak up about the poverty and the corruption in El Salvador. I wanted to tell the whole world that the intervention of LOUDmouth 10 SPOTLIGHT ON A LOCAL ACTIVIST “don’t give up. we will see change.” – maria guardado By Yazmin Araiza and Christine Petit M aria Guardado's life is an example of unwavering strength in the face of torture. In the early 1970s she became politically active at a turbulent time in her home country, El Salvador. Around this time, a civil war emerged. State-sponsored violence via the military and highly trained death squads were commonplace. The U.S. government played a large role in the killing and destruction that occurred during this time by pouring huge sums of money into the Latin American government. This money was used to back the military and prolong the civil war. During the civil war, approximately 80,000 civilians died or disappeared because of their political beliefs. Thousands more, like Maria, were tortured at the hands of death squads. The horrendous torture Maria endured did not beat her into submission. Rather, she was further radicalized. Although she sought asylum in the United States, she continues to fight for justice on many fronts in the "Third World city” of Los Angeles. She continues to be active in several organizations and can frequently be spotted at protests. Picking her out of a recent protest in L.A., we ran up to greet Maria like crazed fans seeking a rock star's autograph. Maria Guardado has been an inspiration to us since we heard her testimony at Cal State L.A. last year, and we cannot think of a woman who embodies the spirit of International Women's Day more than she does. ¿Cómo te envolviste en el movimiento político en El Salvador? Cuando empecé yo no quería quitar al gobierno. Yo empecé para ser voluntaria con el PAR (Partido Acción Renovadora) era un partido político en El Salvador que estaba corriendo para las elecciones presidenciales. Inicialmente yo empecé a ser voluntaria porque necesitaba el trabajo y el PAR me prometió que si se ganaban las elecciones me darían un trabajo de secretaria. Estaba desesperada por un trabajo porque dos de mis hermanas habían muerto y dejado cinco niños al cuidado de mi familia y mi madre estaba en una silla de ruedas. Necesitaba ayudar a mi familia de cualquier manera. En el año 1972 tres partidos políticos se unieron para poder ganar las elecciones presidenciales se llamaban UNO (Unión Nacional Opositora). Las elecciones de ese año se perdieron. Las elecciones de 1977 fueron muy grandes. El partido UNO otra vez corrió para la elección, pero pronto las elecciones presidenciales se convirtieron en una revolución. Muchas personas morían cada día y nosotros los activistas tuvimos que escondernos antes de ser capturados o asesinados. En el 12 de enero de 1980 fui secuestrada. Me torturaron por tres días, me dieron toques de electricidad en todo mi cuerpo, me violaron y me golpearon muchas veces. Pensé que me moría cuando me torturaban. Solo podía gritar al principio de cada una porque luego ya no podía con mi cuerpo se enmudeció del dolor. Algo que me acuerdo muy bien es que un anglo estaba dando las órdenes de mi tortura. Eso me dio coraje para sobrevivir y decirle a todo el mundo lo que estaba pasando. Cuando pensaron que estaba muerta, fueron a tirar mi cuerpo a los montes. Cuando me pude levantar me arastré a unas casas cercanas pidiendo ayuda pero nadie respondía a mis llantos. Miré a un taxista en la carretera y fui como pude. Le lloré, pidiéndole que me llevara a mi casa. Él tenía miedo de los policías porque era muy noche pero le lloré tanto que me llevó a mi casa. Ya que estaba en casa me dieron atención médica otros activistas porque no podía ir al hospital, los militares estaban buscando activistas en los hospitales, universidades y clínicas. Cuando pude, me fui a refugiar a Chiapas con mis cinco sobrinos. de los Estados Unidos. Nuestras familias se deshacen y a veces hasta nos morimos tratando de cruzar la línea cuando lo único que buscamos es solo una manera mejor de vivir. La razón que yo vine a los Estados Unidos fue porque me estaba quedando en un refugio en el Sur de América yo di mi testimonio y las personas que se encargaban del refugio decidieron que era más seguro para mí en los Estados Unidos. La organización Santiago que se enfoca a ayudar a Salvadoreños y Guatemaltecos me ayudaron bastante. Me llevaron de iglesia a iglesia hasta que llegué a los Estados Unidos. Yo di mi testimonio por todos los Estados Unidos pero decidí venir a Los Angeles donde ya tenía familia y pronto obtuve mi estatus de refugiada política. ¿Por qué decidiste venir a los Estados Unidos? Personas del tercer mundo no vienen a los Estados Unidos no porque queramos sino porque somos forzados a venir porque hay tanta pobreza y las guerras que a veces son creadas con ayuda How and why did you get involved in the political movement of El Salvador? When I first started I did not want to overthrow the government. I began volunteering with PAR (Renovated Action Party), a political LOUDmouth 9 ¿Tu familia alguna vez desaprobó que contribuyeras con el movimiento político? Por supuesto, mi familia me pidió que dejara la política muchas veces. Yo ya estaba muy conciente politicamente para abandonar el movimento. Me dolía dejar a mi madre y a mi familia para organizar, pero yo me di al movimiento con esperanza de hacer cambios. Es muy importante que pelemos por nuestros derechos humanos pero es mucho más importante en el tercer mundo. ¿Qué te dio esperanza después que te capturaron? Quería que las personas supieran de la pobreza y la corrupción del gobierno del Salvador. Quería decirle a todo el mundo que la intervención de los Estados Unidos en El Salvador hizo las cosas peores, una guerra que hubiera durado de tres a cinco años pero duró diez años. Yo quiero que las personas sepan lo que ocurrió en El Salvador. ¿En honor del Día Internacional de la Mujer, qué le quiere decir a las mujeres del mundo? ¿Qué va a pasar con el mundo si no organizamos nuestras comunidades? Tenemos que continuar educándonos para ayudar que todo el mundo levante armas contra el capitalismo y por la humanidad. Para crear un mundo mejor para las generaciones del futuro. No importa que tan duras sean las situaciones no dejen de luchar para obtener un cambio. University of Texas, El Paso, spoke of the stereotypes portrayed by the government. The authorities frame the women as those whose “skirts are too short” and whose “lipstick is too red.” Blame is also placed on women who go out at night, which dismisses the fact that working-class women often have jobs that require late shifts. When Norma Andrade inquired about her missing daughter, the police insulted her. They told Andrade that she “did not know who her daughter was going around with.” Government officials were not any better. “[The officials] said, ‘Your daughter is on the streets; she’s a bitch; she’ll come back someday.’ They said, ‘Good women are in the house. Bad women are on the streets.’” The mothers of the victims are vilified by authorities. They are framed as viejas escandalosas (scandal-mongering women) when they inquire about their daughters. Furthermore, the mothers are often threatened when they speak up about their daughters, creating a silence in the city about the crimes. “The authorities told me, ‘You have one child still alive; you better shut up or she’ll end up like your other daughter,’” Andrade related. The mothers and activists who came to speak at the conference received death threats for participating. According to Andrade, all of the moms are being followed back in Mexico. A 65-year-old mother was followed, then beaten by three people. The police claimed it was a robbery. FIGHTING FROM ALL FRONTS There have been many responses to the murders in Juárez. The first groups to form in reaction to the murders consisted of the mothers and relatives of the victims. They banded together to form grassroots groups such as Voces Sin Eco, Mujeres Por Juárez, 8 de Marzo, and Casa Amiga (the only rape and abuse crisis shelter in Juárez). The groups assisted the mothers with their basic needs, such as walking through the desert to search for missing daughters and bringing the remains to forensic specialists. They also staged protests and wrote letters to the government. The newest of these groups, Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa, was co-founded by Norma Andrade in February 2001. Another group, Justicia para Nuestras Hijas, is a Chihuahuabased group formed after bodies of young women, patterned after the Juárez crimes, were found in the city Chihuahua. The issue of the Juárez crimes gained major international attention in 2003 when Amnesty International released a report titled “Intolerable Deaths, Mexico: 10 years of murder and missing women in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.” The report was released during an international press conference in Juárez on Aug. 11, 2003. It called on the Mexican government to improve the policing and stop these murders. While this has drawn much press coverage and public awareness, the killers seem unaffected. A day after the press conference, two more bodies turned up dead. Moreover, the governor of Chihuahua, Patricio Martinez Garcia, responded to the Amnesty report by saying, "I want to ask Amnesty International how many murders there are every year in the state of California. Don't come to us with this archaic position and say that only in Juárez are there women murdered." Another way the activism has gone international is through what writer, performance artist and associate professor at Columbia University School of the Arts Coco Fusco calls “hacktivism,” which entails the usage of electronic disturbance as a form of protest. The “virtual sit-in” that took place involved FloodNet, a program that allows online participants to freeze up the Mexican government’s computer server. “This is like blocking the streets in front of the White House, but we’re blocking the bandwidth in front of the government server,” explained Fusco, who initiated the FloodNet actions. “It’s appealing to young people who use computers to play games who don’t want to march and vigil,” said Fusco. Graciela Sánchez, director and cofounder of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, does not agree with reliance on technology for activism. “Some cyber connections are disastrous. People are not talking to each other face to face anymore, not even talking on the phone,” Sánchez said. She explained that besides the fact that many people do not have access to such technological tools, the “hard stuff” of political organizing is the personal interactions, where activists must take into account one another’s sexism, racism and homophobia. “[In person] is where people say, ‘Hey, you’re talking too much,’” Sánchez noted. This keeps hierarchies from forming within activist groups. She also mentioned that trust must be built in person. When sending e-mails, people are cautious with their words, and distrust can easily shatter movements when organizers have met each other only through e-mails. Sánchez believes that community building is the key to helping the situation in Juárez. Others believe in working from the top down. Congresswoman Hilda Solis of California, the only U.S. Congress member who has dedicated energy to the Juárez murders so far, believes that we should get more Congress members involved in order to affect Secretary of State Colin Powell and President Bush. “I don’t think it’ll take all that much work. We just have to do it,” said Solis. GLOBALIZATION AND JUÁREZ While the Mexican government and police are a source of the problem, Gaspar de Alba points out the role of those on the other side of the border. “We’re not conscious of the fact that women have died making your Walkman, your clothes, your shoes,” Gaspar de Alba said. Since NAFTA was signed between the United States and Mexico in 1993, women have been drawn toward the maquiladoras in Juárez, which embody many dreams and promises of “being right next to the wonderland.” NAFTA allows U.S. companies to follow Mexican labor laws instead of U.S. laws, which is why maquiladora workers are paid an average of $5 per day, according to Gaspar de Alba. The majority of these maquiladora workers are young women. They are viewed as disposable to the foreign companies. “For every girl killed, there are 25 girls waiting in line to take her place,” said Gaspar de Alba. Thus, the companies have taken no responsibility for the safety of their employees so far. Women in Juárez continue to endanger their lives to manufacture cheap goods for foreign consumers. According to Señorita Extraviada, over 80 percent of the maquiladoras in Juárez are U.S.-owned. On Valentine’s Day 2001, Norma Andrade’s 17-year-old daughter disappeared after leaving work at the maquiladora. On the same day, North Americans spent an estimated $2 billion on goods and services, according to the Gartner Group. The deaths in Juárez reflect a global economy that treats its piece workers (and peace workers) as dispensable units, where company owners base their actions on sales gains and may remain distant and unaccountable for their workers’ safety. “These crimes are not just a Mexican problem,” Gaspar de Alba said. For updates, visit www.juarezwomen.com. To help, visit www.amigosdemujeres.org. Emily is the editor in chief of UCLA’s feminist magazine, FEM. Become a co-conspirator: [email protected]. LOUDmouth 14 NEW URGENCY TO FIGHT FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS By Peggy Simpson P olitical hypocrisy is alive and well in Poland. In the last election, the governing Democratic Left Alliance, or SLD, had won votes over the Solidarity parties by promising to liberalize Poland’s abortion law, rivaled with only Ireland’s as the strictest in Europe. The SLD reneged on that promise in January 2003 in order to curry favor with Catholic bishops who they feared could derail Poland’s upcoming entry into the European Union. President Aleksander Kwaniewski takes the cake. He favored expanding the 1993 law beyond current exceptions for rape, incest, fetal deformities or health of the mother. Now he says the law isn’t that bad — especially when Poland’s birth rate is so low. With nearly 11 million women of childbearing age, a thriving black-market abortion industry has sprung up. Doctors charge an average of $500 for an underground abortion — more than a month’s wages for doctors at state hospitals. Ironically, the opportunity for doctors to earn this significant salary supplement appears to be one reason women eligible for legal abortions get the runaround in state hospitals. The good news is that more women are paying attention, swelling the ranks of women’s studies classes, joining in protest letters to politicians, and showing up at street demonstrations including an annual “manifa” that takes place every International Women’s Day. Last year’s slogans included “Yes for rights to abortion, rights to contraception.” This year’s demonstration on March 8 will be closely watched by both the bishops and SLD politicians to assess the clout of the women’s rights groups. Peggy recently returned to Washington, D.C. from Warsaw, where she spent a decade reporting on the economic and political transitions in Central East Europe. This article was originally printed in Ms. Magazine, Spring 2003. www.msmagazine.com ABORTION RIGHTS GLOBALLY every number tells a story $7 BILLION Annual shortfall to meet all international familyplanning needs each year. 7 YEAR Prison sentence mandated for women in Kenya convicted of having an abortion. EVERY 7 MINUTES A woman somewhere in the world dies from an unsafe abortion. 30% - 40% Percentage of women in sub-Saharan Africa with unwanted pregnancies who die from unsafe abortions. 50% - 60% Percentage of women in gynecological wards of hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa who are receiving treatment for complications from unsafe abortions. $34 MILLION Amount of money withheld by the United States for U.N.-sponsored family-planning services, under the guise that the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) purportedly supports programs in rural China that coerce abortions. 800,000 Number of abortions that could be prevented with that $34 million. $1 MILLION Amount donated by concerned individuals - so far - to make up the UNFPA shortfall. 4.6 Annual supply of condoms available, on average, to each man in sub-Saharan Africa. 8 BILLION Estimated number of condoms required in developing countries and Eastern Europe to expand access for those in need. 30,000 Number of women in Africa who die each year as the result of unsafe abortions. 440,000 Number of women worldwide who died between 1995 and 2000 from complications after unsafe abortions. 1 The only vote in support of U.S.-proposed changes to the 1994 Cairo plan for population and development that would have removed references to “reproductive health” and “reproductive rights.” The voter: the United States. This was originally printed in Ms. Magazine, Summer 2003. Only 124 legal abortions were reported in Poland in 2001. Estimates of illegal abortions range from 80,000 to 200,000. Polish Radical Cheerleaders demonstrate for reproductive rights. Photo by Janek Skarzynski of the AFP. EMPIRE orchestrated the killing was voted back into office with a comfortable majority. Nobody has been punished for the genocide. Narendra Modi, architect of the pogrom and proud member of the RSS, has embarked on his second term as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. If he were Saddam Hussein each atrocity would have been on CNN. But since he’s not — and since the Indian “market” is open to global investors — the massacre is not even an embarrassing inconvenience. There are more than 100 million Muslims in India. A time bomb is ticking in our ancient land. All this to say that it is a myth that the free market breaks down national barriers. The free market does not threaten national sovereignty; it undermines democracy. As the disparity between the rich and the poor grows, the fight to corner resources intensifies. To push through their “sweetheart deals” — to corporatize the crops we grow, the water we drink, the air we breathe and the dreams we dream — corporate globalization needs an international confederation of loyal, corrupt, authoritarian governments in poorer countries to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies. Corporate globalization — or shall we call it by its name? — imperialism — needs a press that pretends to be free. It needs courts that pretend to dispense justice. Meanwhile, the countries of the North harden their borders and stockpile weapons of mass destruction. After all, they have to make sure that it’s only money, goods, patents and services that are globalized. Not the free movement of people. Not a respect for human rights. Not international treaties on racial discrimination or chemical and nuclear weapons or greenhouse gas emissions or climate change or — god forbid — justice. So this — all this — is empire. This loyal confederation, this obscene accumulation of power, this greatly increased distance between those who make the decisions and those who have to suffer them. Our fight, our goal, our vision of another world must be to eliminate that distance. So how do we resist empire? The good news is that we’re not doing too badly. There have been major victories. Here in Latin America you have had so many. In Bolivia, you have Cochabamba. In Peru, there was the uprising in Arequipa. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez is holding on, despite the U.S. government’s best efforts. And the world’s gaze is on the people of Argentina, who are trying to refashion a country from the ashes of the havoc wrought by the IMF. In India the movement against corporate globalization is gathering momentum and is poised to become the only real political force to counter religious fascism. As for corporate globalization’s glittering ambassadors — Enron, Bechtel, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen — where were they last year, and where are they now? And, of course, here in Brazil we must ask: Who was the president last year, and who is it now? Still, many of us have dark moments of hopelessness and despair. We know that under the spreading canopy of the War Against Terrorism, the men in suits are hard at work. While bombs rain down on us and cruise missiles skid across the skies, we know that contracts are being signed, patents are being registered, oil pipelines are being laid, natural resources are being plundered, water is being privatized, and George Bush is planning to go to war against Iraq. If we look at this conflict as a straightforward, eye-to-eye confrontation between empire and those of us who are resisting it, it might seem that we are losing. By Arundhati Roy But there is another way of looking at it. We, all of us gathered here, have, each in our own way, laid siege to empire. We may not have stopped it in its tracks — yet — but we have stripped it down. We have made it drop its mask. We have forced it into the open. It now stands before us on the world’s stage in all its brutish, iniquitous nakedness. Empire may well go to war, but it’s out in the open now — too ugly to behold its own reflection. Too ugly even to rally its own people. It won’t be long before the majority of American people become our allies. In Washington, a quarter of a million people marched against the war on Iraq. Each month, the protest is gathering momentum. Before Sept. 11, 2001, America had a secret history. Secret especially from its own people. But now America’s secrets are history, and its history is public knowledge. It’s street talk. Today, we know that every argument that is being used to escalate the war against Iraq is a lie. And the most ludicrous of them is the U.S. government’s deep commitment to bringing democracy to Iraq. Killing people to save them from dictatorship or ideological corruption is, of course, an old U.S. government sport. Here in Latin America, you know that better than most. Nobody doubts that Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator, a murderer (whose worst excesses were supported by the governments of the United States and Great Britain). There’s no doubt that Iraqis would be better off without him. But, then, the whole world would be better off without a certain Mr. Bush. In fact, he is far more dangerous than Saddam Hussein. So, should we bomb Bush out of the White House? It’s more than clear that Bush is determined to go to war against Iraq, regardless of the facts — and regardless of international public opinion. In its recruitment drive for allies, the United States is prepared to invent facts. The charade with weapons inspectors is the U.S. government’s offensive, insulting concession to some twisted form of international etiquette. It’s like leaving the “doggie door” open for last-minute “allies” or maybe the United Nations to crawl through. But for all intents and purposes, the new war against Iraq has begun. What can we do? We can hone our memory, we can learn from our history. We can continue to build public opinion until it becomes a deafening roar. We can turn the war on Iraq into a fishbowl of the U.S. government’s excesses. We can expose George Bush and Tony Blair — and their allies — for the cowardly baby killers, water poisoners and pusillanimous long-distance bombers that they are. We can re-invent civil disobedience in a million different ways. In other words, we can come up with a million ways of becoming a collective pain in the ass. When George Bush says, “You’re either with us, or you are with the terrorists,” we can say, “No thank you.” We can let him know that the people of the world do not need to choose between a Malevolent Mickey Mouse and the Mad Mullahs. Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To derive it. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness — and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling — their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Arundhati Roy received the 1997 Booker Prize for The God of Small Things. This piece can also be found in her latest book War Talk. LOUDmouth 15 LOUDmouth 8 CONFRONTING THE HIV/ AIDS EPIDEMIC By Julie Sabatier I People around the world are standing up to the World Trade Organization. Photo courtesy of the Focus on the Global South, Manila Office. Editor’s note: As we go to print, activists, artists and intellectuals are gathering from all over the globe at the World Social Forum (WSF) in India (www.wsfindia.org). This talk was presented at last year’s WSF in Porto Alegre, Brazil, yet is still relevant today. Arundhati takes a look at the atrocities taking place — before the United States invaded Iraq last year — that continue in the present day. At the same time, she gracefully offers a beacon of hope that resistance is not only possible, it is inevitable. I have been asked to speak about how to confront empire. It’s a huge question, and I have no easy answers. When we speak of confronting empire, we need to identify what empire means. Does it mean the U.S. government (and its European satellites), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that? In many countries, empire has sprouted other subsidiary heads, some dangerous byproducts — nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and, of course, terrorism. All these march arm in arm with the project of corporate globalization. Let me illustrate what I mean. India, the world’s biggest democracy, is currently at the forefront of the corporate globalization project. Its “market” of one billion people is being pried open by the WTO. Corporatization and privatization are being welcomed by the government and the Indian elite. It is not coincidence that the prime minister, the home minister, the disinvestment minister — the men who signed the deal with Enron in India, the men who are selling the country’s infrastructure to corporate multinationals, the men who want to privatize water, electricity, oil, coal, steel, health, education and telecommunications — are all members or admirers of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing, ultraLOUDmouth 7 nationalist Hindu guild that has openly admired Hitler and his methods. The dismantling of democracy is proceeding with the speed and efficiency of a structural-adjustment program. While the project of corporate globalization rips through people’s lives in India, massive privatization and labor “reforms” are pushing people off their land and out of their jobs. Hundreds of impoverished farmers are committing suicide by consuming pesticides. Reports of starvation deaths are coming in from all over the country. While the elite journey to their imaginary destination somewhere near the top of the world, the dispossessed spiral downwards into crime and chaos. This climate of frustration and national disillusionment is the perfect breeding ground, history tells us, for fascism. The two arms of the Indian government have evolved the perfect pincer action. While one arm is busy selling India off in chunks, the other, to divert attention, orchestrates a howling, baying chorus of Hindu nationalism and religious fascism. It conducts nuclear tests, rewrites history books, burns churches and demolishes mosques. Censorship, surveillance, the suspension of civil liberties and human rights, the questioning of who is an Indian citizen and who is not, particularly with regard to religious minorities, are all becoming common practice. Last March, in the state of Gujarat, 2,000 Muslims were butchered in a state-sponsored pogrom. Muslim women were especially targeted. They were stripped and gang raped before being burned alive. Arsonists burned and looted shops, homes, textile mills and mosques. More than 150,000 Muslims have been driven from their homes. The economic base of the Muslim community has been devastated. While Gujarat burned, the Indian Prime Minister was on MTV promoting his new poems. In December 2002, the government that t may be a new year, but Africa finds itself facing the same problems in an ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis. In a culture where people have limited access to family-planning facilities and basic information about sexual health, women are particularly at risk. Many young girls struggling to pay their school fees are approached by “sugar daddies” who offer to pay for their education among other things in exchange for sexual favors. Many of these often older men are infected with HIV and spread it to many young women at once. The spread of deadly misinformation perpetuates infection. For example, it is widely believed amongst men that a quick cure to the disease is to have sex with a virgin. When women become pregnant, they have very few options besides carrying the child to term. On average, an African woman will give birth to six children during her lifetime. One of the leading causes of death for a pregnant woman is AIDS. Though the HIV/AIDS crisis, as well as Africa’s maternal mortality rate, is clearly linked to the lack of information about sexual health and birth control, the Bush administration’s solution to the problem is to increase funds while restricting sex education. The United States is directing the bulk of these funds into drug-treatment programs. In late 2003, South Africa, one of the continent’s richest nations, revealed a plan to provide antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) to its citizens free of charge. Zambia hopes to implement a similar program in the upcoming year. The United States is not the only country attempting to gain control of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. In late 2003, Canada announced that it was changing its patent laws to allow the sale of generic drugs at reduced prices to developing countries. This makes Canada the first industrialized country to offer ARVs at lower prices to Africa. Last year, the South African government struggled with drug companies to change patent laws that would cut ARV prices by over 50 percent. This year, with medication available at reduced costs, perhaps the focus can return to reopening clinics and arming the African people with more comprehensive information on the spread of AIDS and sexual health in general. Julie lives in Portland, Ore., where she wishes the sun visited a little more often. Send her some light: [email protected]. FILM female genital mutilation T he Day I Will Never Forget is a gripping feature documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Kim Longinotto (Divorce Iranian Style and Runaway) that examines the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Kenya and the pioneering African women who are bravely reversing the tradition. In this epic work, women speak candidly about the practice and explain its cultural significance within Kenyan society. From gripping testimonials by young women who share the painful aftermath of their trauma to interviews with elderly matriarchs who stubbornly stand behind the practice, Longinotto paints a complex portrait of the current polemics and conflicts that have allowed this procedure to exist well into modern times. Female genital mutilation (FGM) is the term used to refer to the removal of part, or all, of the female genitalia. The most severe form is infibulation, also known as pharaonic circumcision. An estimated 15 percent of all mutilations in Africa are infibulations. The procedure consists of clitoridectomy (where all, or part of, the clitoris is removed), excision (removal of all, or part of, the labia minora), and cutting of the labia majora to create raw surfaces, which are then stitched or held together in order to form a cover over the vagina when they heal. A small hole is left to allow urine and menstrual blood to escape. In some less conventional forms of infibulation, less tissue is removed and a larger opening is left. The vast majority (85 percent) of genital mutilations performed in Africa consist of clitoridectomy or excision. The least radical procedure consists of the removal of the clitoral hood. In some traditions a ceremony is held, but no mutilation of the genitals occurs. The ritual may include holding a knife next to the genitals, pricking the clitoris, cutting some pubic hair, or light scarification in the genital or upper thigh area. Winner of many awards, The Day I Will Never Forget demystifies the African tradition of female circumcision. Longinotto presents Nurse Fardhosa, a woman who is single-handedly reversing the ritual one village at a time by educating communities about its lasting emotional and physical scars. Also profiled are an inspiring group of runaway girls who are seeking a court injunction to stop their parents from forcing them to go through with the practice. Through their words the full implications of breaking with tradition are made clear, as is the incredible courage of the women and girls who risk social ostracism by taking a stand against the practice. The Day I Will Never Forget was shown at the Maxwell Theatre in the UniversityStudent Union on Feb. 26 this year and is available for viewing through the Cross Cultural Centers office at (323) 343-5001. For more information on this film check out the Women Make Movies website: www.wmm.com. For more on FGM visit Amnesty International’s website at www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/femgen/fgm1.htm. LOUDmouth 16 Sex & Pow er AN INTERVIEW WITH ABELINA GALUSTIAN By Jessica Hoffmann A belina Galustian’s paintings explore patriarchy, Orientalism, sex and more. She believes in turning gender roles on their head, and then some. LOUDmouth writer Jessica Hoffmann recently spent an hour talking with Abelina over coffee. They’re garrulous girls; the following is a condensed version of their conversation. JH: When we met, you introduced yourself as “a feminist artist.” Why do you choose to immediately identify yourself as an artist and as a feminist? AG: The reason I identify myself as a feminist artist is because I’m an activist first and an artist second...Art gives an immediate assault to the senses, and it leaves no room for niceties or political correctness. You’re clearly not interested in niceties; your work is bold and direct. I wonder if you’ve always been that way— I’ve never been that way. I became that way recently. I’ve been taught to respect and to stay quiet and to not talk that much. A woman in my cultural context shouldn’t say more than three words at a time, she should be very modest and...act very chaste. She has to know...the theatrics of how to be feminine. “Feminine,” in our definition, is to be submissive, to be quiet, to be agreeable — with men. Photo of the artist by Vachik Galustian. LOUDmouth 17 Can you describe for readers what your “cultural context” is? I come from a diasporic background. I’m Armenian, but I was born and raised in Iran. I was 10 years old when I came to the U.S. It was very difficult in the beginning. I was never allowed to do the things that my Western friends did. I was HONORING INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY m y grandmo t her ’s knit ting needles By Emma Rosenthal “What the woman who labors wants is to live, not simply exist — the right to life as the rich woman has it, the right to life, and the sun, and music and art. You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses too.” — Garment worker Rose Schneiderman, August 1912 H er hands moved like mercury. The click-clack of the needles, back and forth, the yarn spinning from the ball on the floor into the moving swarm of hands and needles, emerging as form, as hats, gloves, scarves, sweaters. “Watch and learn,” she would tell me, and I tried but all I saw was the miraculous transformation of a ball of yarn into cloth. She had grandmother hands, bumpy where the veins stood out, loose, soft skin. “Before a girl could get married in my village, she had to prove that she was patient enough for the task,” she told me. “They would give her a bundle of tangled yarn,” she would say, as we would struggle to untangle wool, or rope or extension cords. She told the story as she wound yarn into balls for knitting. “If she could not untangle the yarn, she could not get married.” I remember that story every time I have something to untangle. I would never settle for a village marriage, but patience is a skill applied to any task worthy of completion. By the time she was five she had lost her entire immediate family. It is not clear if they died of illness and starvation or were killed in pogroms, massacres committed by Polish or Russian authorities against the Jewish peasants throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Either way, it was governmental policies toward the Jews that killed them, living in the region that was Poland one day, Russia the next, bombarded by Cossacks, governmentsanctioned thugs that rode in on horseback killing and destroying everything in their sight, slashing open the bellies of pregnant women, raping children, killing the livestock, burning homes. She remembered being thrown into a root cellar by her aunt when she was only six to hide from the Cossacks, hidden among the carrots and parsnips, potatoes and rutabagas, while death and destruction ravaged in the streets above her. At six, she landed on Ellis Island in New York Harbor with her aunt and nephews on the false passport of her dead cousin. They came to join her uncle in New York, in America, where there was supposed to be such abundance that they shoveled gold in the streets. What she found were the tenements of New York’s Lower East Side. Delancy Street, Hester Street. A three-room, cold water walk-up flat on the fourth floor. There was no bath. The toilet was in the hallway, shared by all the families on the floor. She slept in the kitchen. She decided to go to work. At age 9 she went to the factory by day and to school at night. Now she had three different identities, something as common to the immigrant experience as cheap labor and cloth dust. She was of course, herself — Anna Kaufman — daughter of Aaron Moses Kaufman and Choma Reingold. Her passport gave her the identity of her dead cousin. And now she had a third set of documents, for work, identifying her as a 13-year-old. She found employment in an umbrella factory making the tips of umbrellas. She worked there for three years. By the time she was 12, she was able to make every part of the umbrella and was now a shop forelady. It was that year, 1909, that a strike broke out in the garment industry. The strike, led mostly by Jewish and Italian immigrant teenagers, was named the Uprising of the 20,000. Not a machine whirred, not a wheel turned. The strike, which began on Nov. 22, 1909, lasted almost four months — through the winter — and ended on March 8, 1910. She wasn’t a leader in the strike, but she left her lofty position of middle management and walked out with the other workers in one of American history’s biggest strikes. “I didn’t want to be a scab,” she told me. Such a different world, where a 12-year-old girl knows the sanctity of a picket line and the importance of righteous bread. “Watch and learn,” she would tell me, her hands moving like silver as yarn became cloth. “Watch and learn.” I still can’t knit. I never have crossed a picket line. Emma is an artist, educator and human-rights activist who was one of 30,000 striking teachers in the Los Angeles teachers’ strike of 1989. Reach her at [email protected]. At the International Conference of Socialist Women, held in Copenhagen in 1910, feminist and revolutionary Clara Zetkin offered a resolution to establish International Women’s Day (IWD) in solidarity with the strikers in the Uprising of the 20,000. The motion passed unanimously. The first IWD was held on March 19, 1911. It was moved to March 8 in 1919, the one-year anniversary of the strike for bread and peace held by women in St. Petersberg, Russia, which turned into four days of rioting culminating in the abdication of the czar. Founded in honor of the fierce young women fighting for their rights in the United States, many Americans have never heard of IWD, although it is celebrated annually all over the globe. LOUDmouth 6 LIST books all feminists need in their toolbox editor’s By Jessica Hoffmann (JH) and Gregory Alan Kingman Hom (AK) Feminism Without Borders by Chandra Talpade Mohanty – This collection of Mohanty’s essays on transnational feminism will, in the words of Angela Davis, “radically [change] the way we think about such categories as ‘Third World women,’ ‘women of color’ and ‘globalization.’” (JH) Women’s Activism and Globalization ed. by Nancy A. Naples and Manisha Desai – This anthology contains more than a dozen articles about contemporary women’s struggles around the world, including pieces on maquila workers’ rights, Okinawa women’s resistance to U.S. militarism and rural women organizing around local/global economic issues. The collection looks at how women in diverse regions are engaging in local/global struggles. (JH) Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition ed. by Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema–Combining scholarly essays with personal narratives, interviews and reports, this anthology presents the perspectives of sex workers from Asia, Australia, the Americas, the Caribbean, Africa and Western Europe. Major themes: rethinking sex work, migrations and tourism, sex workers’ organizations and AIDS prevention as well as sex workers’ empowerment. (JH) v-day Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa – There is nothing like Borderlands. In her exploration of psychological, sexual, spiritual, physical, cultural and social borderlands – the U.S.Mexico border, the borders between identities, the border between queer and straight, and more – Anzaldúa moves between poetry and prose, English and Spanish, critical theory and intimate memoir, weaving a text that is as complex and fluid and difficult and urgent as its subject. (JH) Sandino’s Daughters by Margaret Randall, ed. by Lynda Yanz – At the time of its publication, this book was the first book-length account of the Nicaraguan Revolution. Additionally, its focus was exclusively on women who were involved in revolutionary politics and action. A variety of class, religious and age opinions show the myriad ways in which women were searching for liberation before and after an inspiring struggle and in the face of a counterrevolution. The pictures are beautiful. (AK) Daughters of Maharashtra: Portraits of Women Who Are Building Maharashtra by Abhijit Varde, ed. by Vidya Bal – Inspired by Sandino’s Daughters, the photographer and interviewer spoke to women in a Maharashtra village about their involvement in anti-colonial struggles. The interviews took place long after the women’s participation and reveal their long-lasting wisdom. The book is also meaningful because these women’s stories had never been told before this account. (AK) By Mary Montoro E ve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues is an Obie Award-winning play that is composed of a series of monologues based on interviews from over 200 women of the precious vagina. A lot of the monologues deal with rape, incest, domestic violence and all other unspeakable acts against women. The play talks about what is usually kept silent and buried. From the success of The Vagina Monologues spawned the idea to start V-Day, a non-profit organization that Ensler started in 1998 with the focus on aiding women worldwide. The V-Day organization brings cultural awareness to women who desperately need help. Simple things like little girls being able to attend school safely are a crucial step for female empowerment. The website gives a list on how everyone can do their part to stop the madness and destruction of the female body, mind and LOUDmouth 5 picks Cunt: A Declaration of Independence by Inga Muscio – The essence of self-help and revolution. As Margaret Cho put it: Anyone who was born out of one needs to read this. Broken up into three parts – the word, the jewel and reconciliation – she looks at everything from blood to Whoredom, orgasm to rape. Moon cycles and womanifestos as well. Practical and profound. Read the 2002 version with the new afterword. To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism ed. by Rebecca Walker – Twenty personal essays written by “an eclectic gathering of folks: a lawyer, videomaker, actor, cultural critic, professor, student, and yes, among others, two men and a ‘supermodel,’” who grapple with what it means to be a feminist today even when it feels like their version of feminism might not be “politically correct.” Sex, beauty, bachelor parties and identity politics are a few of the things touched on. True. Honest. Insightful. Inspirational. Orientalism by Edward W. Said – Although Professor Said, a Palestinian American, passed away this year, his works continue to influence and inspire. This groundbreaking book had a great impact on the lens through which the Middle East is viewed and has significantly influenced filmmakers, artists (see interview with Abelina) and intellectuals alike. He looks at how history, empire, religion and then some have affected the way “the Orient” is viewed, scrutinized and misunderstood. Woman, Native, Other spirit. There are campaigns both worldwide and small ones at colleges and universities that bring the awareness to your town. Also, the site has an extraordinary list of programs such as Afghan Women’s Summit and the Stop Rape Contest to illustrate how serious the problems are and what can be done about them. On a lighter note, the members of the ever-growing and popular vulva choir share stories of their own vaginas. Actresses Gina Gershon, Calista Flockhart and Oprah Winfrey are only a handful of women who participate in events ending domestic violence against women. You can learn how to get involved with V-Day, be a part of their events and find out where the nearest V-Day event is near you at www.vday.org. When it comes to v-words, Mary prefers victory over vagina. Send your favorite words her way: [email protected]. by Trinh T. Minh-ha – In this important work, Trinh questions language and writing in relation to the notions of ethnicity and femininity; of identity, authenticity, and difference; of commitment as to the function and role of the woman writer; and of storytelling as one of the oldest forms of building historical consciousness. Her critical lens challenges the reader to rethink privilege, the role of the written word, and language itself. never allowed to go to parties as a teenager. I was perceived as a woman by then and I’m not supposed to be “wasting my time,” because nice girls stay at home. So how did you become a feminist artist? It was an amalgamate of many things, many situations that just one day blew up, and I said, “That’s it. Either I’m going to die living like this or I have to stand up to my word and to my true self.” Can you describe, in general, your artistic project? I just wanted to turn the mirror to the other 50 percent of the population, which is men. I wanted them to see what we see. But I wasn’t successful in doing that. So many things have been so canonized that it’s not easy with just, say, five paintings, to have viewers see what I see — “I” meaning women in general. Let’s take Jean-Leon Gerome’s The Slave Market — a nude woman being sold off. That is seen as a classical work of beauty. I did the same exact thing, except with a male nude, and that was seen as a vulgar, crude, perverted expression. With Jean-Leon Gerome, viewers applaud his technique. My technique could inter-compare with his. But viewers saw the penis and couldn’t get over the fact that there is a viable, hard penis in that painting. “Why is he sitting there, in that position — in a shamed position — yet his penis is hard? How did that happen? How come these older women are scrutinizing him and testing him?” In addition to the work you’re doing in subverting the canonized male gaze, you’re also doing work around Orientalism. How would you define Orientalism? Orientalism is a Western thought. It’s a Western fantasy ...to really exoticize the other. It’s been a way for Western artists to capitalize on Oriental literature, paintings — a way of “transcending” the Occident. In the late 18th century, it became a fashion, a mode. Most artists would go to Turkey or North Africa and they would stay there for months, doing their paintings. Schools started forming. The French and British were the forerunners. So it became a fashion, and these paintings ended up in the living rooms of the French and British bourgeoisie. They would end up in living rooms and dining rooms of bachelors, of powerful men — these nudes of Eastern women. So, in choosing to recast these particular paintings, gender-wise, you’re making a very specific choice. Yes. I’m choosing, specifically, ones that are very well known. I want the viewers to do a double-take and say, “Wait a minute. We recognize this. We’ve seen this somewhere — but, we haven’t!” Secondly, they also have a historical meaning for me. For example, The Deposed Favorite was in Sultan Abdul Aziz‘s court. He had the biggest harem. Most of the women were Armenian. Men would just go and kidnap these women and use them as they pleased and then depose them. Also in 1915, the Turks massacred more than a million-and-a-half Armenians. This is my way of saying something about the genocide. In The Deposed Favorite...these women are being deposed, but here I have the Turkish man and the Armenian queen — or Sultana — who has power over male sexuality, who has power of her own sexuality. And she’s not afraid to use it. What do you think of the concept of “global feminism?” I think there’s value in uniting globally. There should be a United Nations of Feminists. And there should be collaboration. For example, I’m dealing with my own cultural oppressions, but when I look into Western feminist thought, it interweaves with my own concerns and elucidates certain things that I wouldn’t otherwise think about. Secondly, empowerment of other women, in other areas or arenas, is also empowerment for me...That’s one of the reasons that Iran is not happy with Shirin Ebadi’s Nobel prize — because women, all of a sudden, became empowered. The headscarves became a little loose, and the ayatollahs became a little worried. It was like, if she can win the Nobel prize, can’t we win one piece of rights, even in our homes? This is going to build up to a revolution for women. Because of one woman. Learn more about Abelina and her work at www.womansword.com. Jessica collaborates with Abelina and other ferocious chicks on KPFK’s Feminist Magazine (90.7 FM in Los Angeles). She loves getting e-mail, so indulge her at [email protected]. Abelina Galustian, Examining Slaves, oil on canvas, 6 ft. x 5.5 ft., 2002. LOUDmouth 18 HEALTH Queer Guy & Girl WORLD EYE ON THE J • There are nine countries in the world today that call for the execution of people convicted of committing homosexual acts — among them are Afghanistan, Sudan, Chechen Republic and Saudi Arabia. • In the mid-1990s, “social cleansing” of LGBT communities was rampant in Colombia, where according to attorney and activist Juan Pablo Ordonez, 7,000 of the 40,000 murders in the country in that period were committed against LGBT-community members by a “right-wing death squad.” Ordonez fled Colombia to the United States after investigating and publicizing his findings. In her 2003 novel, The Dirty Girls Social Club, Alisa Valdes Rodriguez explores the issue of Colombian social cleansing through the Elizabeth Cruz character. • The social cleansing of queer folks has been a common practice in countries such as Indonesia, Iran, and Yemen, where LGBT people have been routinely harassed, beaten and ordered to leave their towns. • The president of Zimbabwe claimed that homosexuals are “lower than dogs and pigs.” LOUDmouth 19 THE F-WORD what feminism means to me Joanna E. Gaspar, M.S., M.P.H. By Shauna Robinson Q : My boyfriend sometimes gets really angry at me and begins to throw things. We've been talking about moving in together, but I feel hesitant. What should I do? Also, is name calling really "abuse?" By Frederick Smith ust when you thought the queer community in the United States had it bad, you begin to realize that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) folks around the world have some tough challenges of their own. Take for example: Joanna Dear Audre Lorde (1934-1992) in her own words, was a “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior poet.” She was also an activist, teacher, cancer survivor and author of 17 books of prose and poetry. Photograph by Jean Weisinger. • In many countries, the intersection of sexism and heterosexism makes the issues of lesbians either invisible or extremely exoticized. Either way, queer men’s issues dominate and fuel the discussion and debate. • The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas sodomy law in 2003, saying the private sexual conduct of people is not the business of the government. 2003 … in the United States! Around the world, the human rights of the queer community are violated daily. Individuals are imprisoned and killed by their own governments for being LGBT; they are also harassed, beaten, murdered and discriminated against on a regular basis. And the few advocates who speak up in those situations are often the targets of death threats and harassment. Amnesty International has taken up the fight for those who cannot speak for themselves in many countries. With the belief that all people deserve equal protection under the law, and that all people deserve basic human rights, the organization has created OUTfront, a small army of activists working to confront human-rights violations of the queer community. Communities of faith are taking it upon themselves to raise awareness of LGBT issues. LGBT Muslims and nonMuslims came together for the First International Retreat for LGBT Muslims in Boston in 1998. A second retreat took place in South Africa in 2000. “We have finally taken the first steps to come together to address the issues that are important to us as a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Muslim community,” said Faisal Alam, Retreat Coordinator and founder of Al-Fatiha. For members of the LGBT community in the United States, joining the international fight for human rights can be empowering. Because even though the community is debated over politically, talked about socially and argued over religiously, queers in the United States still have some basic protections under the law that aren’t even in the books elsewhere. To look further into international queer issues, check out the Amnesty International website, www.amnestyusa.org/outfront, or the International Gay and Lesbian Association website, www.ilga.org. Fred has just completed a fiction manuscript about four queer men of color in L.A. and is seeking a literary agent. Contact him at [email protected]. A : It may not seem like it, but throwing things and name calling are forms of abuse, and you need to seriously consider where this relationship might lead. Dating/domestic violence are Questions for Joanna? Send them to [email protected]. patterns of behavior that one partner uses to gain power over the other. They include public humiliation, playing mind games, name calling; isolating you from family/friends; making threats; hitting, slapping, kicking and sexual assault/rape. Dating/domestic violence is against the law. Dating/domestic violence often occurs as a “cycle of violence” consisting of three phases that increase in both frequency and severity over time. During the tension-building phase, abusing partners are “edgy” and often verbally abuse their partners. As tension increases, minor episodes of violence occur, such as throwing things or shoving. The tension-building phase ends in an explosion of uncontrolled violence, the acute battering phase. Abusers discount this violent episode and may refuse to summon medical help for their partners. During the loving reconciliation phase, abusers may apologize and “shower” their partners with love. This pleasurable time may convince partners to stay with abusers. Without help, the cycle repeats, and eventually the tension-building phases become shorter and more intense, the battering incidents more frequent and severe, and the lovingreconciliation period shorter and less intense. For help and more information, call the 24-hour National Domestic Violence Hotline (www.ndvh.org) at (800) 799-SAFE (7233) or (800) 787-3224 (TTY); talk with a health professional at the Student Health Center; speak with a campus police officer at (323) 343-3700; and/or visit the California Courts Self-Help Center at www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp/dv/. Call 911 if you are in immediate danger. The Student Health Center is located on the main walkway across from Biological Sciences and adjacent to the Center for Career Planning and Placement. For more information call (323) 343-3300 or go online to www.calstatela.edu/univ/hlth_ctr/. Services for women and men include but are not limited to family planning, counseling and prescribing, immunizations and testing for STDs. Pap smears for cancer screening are available for women. Outpatient care is available Monday and Thursday, 8:30 a.m.7 p.m.; Tuesday and Wednesday, 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m.; and Friday, 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Send Shauna your thoughts on the f-word: [email protected]. “The F-WORD,” a regular column which made its debut in the fall, features poets, artists, intellectuals and good-hearted folk talking about what “feminism” means to them. Here, writer Shauna Robinson delves into what the word, the movement, and the feminist identity mean to her. We, at LOUDmouth, believe the debate needs to be ongoing. Again, we encourage you to start one up with your friends and enemies today. t seems like most people flee from feminism like it’s a dirty little label. Black women, like me, try to escape it because we are Black first, female second and, “Those white women don’t even speak my language.” Men often run from it because the word alone connotates various types of power (some real, some perceived, some authentic, some exaggerated). I’m here to claim that dirty little label. I’m stitching it on my backside because I am proud to be a feminist. Frankly, I don’t care what came first — the chicken or the egg, the right to vote or the right to freedom. For me, I’m as Black as I am female. I have kinky hair and a clitoris. And, being a feminist serves all parts of me because feminism is an analogy for humanity and humanity is something that every human has the power to bestow. In the context of the evolution of the human race, women a thousand years from now will probably be amazed that it was once necessary to dissect our decency into little group-appropriate labels, to liberate aspects of ourselves one section at a time. But today, feminism exists because the storm of oppression on females continues to rain down across the world. And, even in the midst of the storm, feminism fights back like welcome sunshine. I Shauna, a screenwriter and more, was recently selected for the Guy Hanks & Marvin Miller Fellowship program founded by Drs. Camille and Bill Cosby. She hopes to change the world one image at a time. LOUDmouth 4 OUR feminist SHEROES By Joseph Coleman KNOW YOUR FeministFACULTY By Amanda R. Davis of the South Central Colemans B orn and raised in San Pedro, Calif., Yuri Kochiyama grew up in a small, working-class community. Her parents were both Japanese immigrants and were diligent about keeping Yuri as religious, provincial and apolitical as possible. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, things dramatically changed for Yuri’s family as well as thousands of other Japanese American citizens. Seized by hysteria, the United States forced many Japanese Americans into internment camps. Due to the onslaught of government paranoia, many Japanese Americans, including Yuri’s own father, were accused of false charges of espionage. Imprisoned in a federal penitentiary, Yuri’s father was forced to undergo harsh conditions and interrogation. After learning the hard way about the injustices of the U.S. government, Yuri recognized the parallels between the treatment of African Americans and Japanese Americans. In 1960, Yuri moved with her husband, Bill, to New York which was steaming with political activity and the Yuri Kochiyama beginnings of major political movements for black liberation. Yuri further transformed her political ideals into action in 1963 when she became friends with Malcolm X. Her encounter with Malcolm influenced many of her perceptions on life and infused a passion that moved her to enlist in the battle for civil rights. Some of her highlights as a political activist include her work with the Black Panther Party and the takeover of the Statue of Liberty in 1977 to demand freedom for Puerto Rican political prisoners. As a couple, both Yuri and Bill helped fight for reparations for the Japanese Americans who were imprisoned during World War II. Yuri is still immersed in the fight against social injustice and works to inspire the next generation of young activists to continue the struggle. Yuri is a true freedom fighter, and she has helped to set the tone for social change in this country. I was blessed to have the opportunity to hear Yuri speak and to let her know that she’s had a positive impact on my life as a black man. Thank you, Yuri, you are an inspiration to us all. D r. Ann Garry is a professor of philosophy and director of the Center for the Study of Genders and Sexualities. She calls herself a feminist without hesitation and says that she “didn’t like people telling me I couldn’t do something because I was a girl.” She thinks of feminism as a “movement that advocates that women can be full-fledged people.” Her classes Contemporary Moral and Social Issues in a Multicultural Society and Philosophy of Gender and Culture are strictly related to gender and feminism. However, Dr. Garry incorporates feminism into every class that she teaches. She encounters a number of students who do not self-identify as feminists, but even if they do not claim the label, Dr. Garry believes that most people are in fact feminists because they hold what are feminist beliefs. She says that many people are reluctant to assume the label because of the common misconceptions associated with the term. “It’s not an accident that people still have those [stereotypes]. People that are opposed to feminism keep dragging them up,” she says. As head of the Center for the Study of Genders and Sexualities, Dr. Garry encourages students to get involved. There are internships available and several programs scheduled. One of the goals of the center is to provide an institutional base of support for feminist, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender scholarship. You can learn more at www.calstatela.edu/centers/csgs. Dr. Garry has taught at Cal State L.A. for more than 30 years and has received such recognitions as the Outstanding Professor Award, the President’s Distinguished Professor Award and the Distinguished Woman Award. She edited the book Women, Knowledge and Reality: Explorations in Feminist Philosophy and serves as associate editor of Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, which she also helped found. inside the ring THE BUSINESS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING By Kate Herman and Sarah A.West T he practice of buying and selling humans for profit is an age-old enterprise, yet it is alive and well today in the form of human trafficking — the world’s fastest-growing criminal industry. Consider these statistics: UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children worldwide are trafficked each year. The numbers are so difficult to track that annual estimates of global trafficking, including men, women and children, vary from 700,000 to 4 million. And it’s not just in tawdry Asian brothels or European redlight districts: In 1997 the CIA estimated that 50,000 persons were trafficked to the United States annually. Though the numbers are disputed, one fact is accepted across the board: Trafficking ranks third-largest in sources of profits for organized crime, placing the multi-billion dollar industry behind only drugs and guns. While the sex trade gets considerably more media attention than other forms of trafficking, reports of forced labor trafficking show the problem is much broader. Countries facing economic strain, high unemployment rates, a lack of women’s rights and corrupt governments show higher numbers of trafficked persons. Trafficking is predominant throughout East Asia and the Pacific, for instance, and spiked in Central and Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. But the problem can be found in nearly every country around the globe, including the United States. In the wake of this sharp increase in trafficking, leaders around the world are taking notice — and action. Policy-makers, governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), women’s groups and activists all have honed in on this problem. Indeed, trafficking has become a unifying issue among feminist and religious fundamentalists, Democrats and Republicans. Breaking the Cycle With stronger laws and worldwide awareness, the human-trafficking industry is under the harshest scrutiny to date. Nevertheless, the January/February 2003 issue of Foreign Policy listed the illegal trade of persons as one of the top five wars we, as a global society, are losing. The tangible effects of human trafficking, and sex trafficking in particular, are impossible to ignore. Children ensnared in trafficking circles suffer lifelong losses — from education to health to their very lives. “Sex trafficking is an almost inevitable death sentence for victims for several reasons,” Holly Burkhalter of Physicians for Human Rights testified to Congress. Children have no ability to insist on the use of condoms, they are forced to have sex with multiple partners daily, and the often-violent sexual encounters expose girls’ physically immature bodies to a greater number of infections and diseases, Burkhalter said. At the height of Thailand’s AIDS epidemic, more than 80 percent of HIV/AIDS cases could be attributed to women in the sex industry and their clients. “It seems highly likely that coercing or forcing millions of cases of girls and women into violent, unprotected sex acts with multiple partners is a significant factor in the spread of the AIDS pandemic,” Burkhalter explained. Often, a promise of hope becomes a child’s worst nightmare. For millions of children around the world, that nightmare is a daily reality. This story was first printed in Outlook, the magazine of the American Association of University Women. www.aauw.org Kate is a senior editor at Outlook. Sarah is a research associate at Progressive Policy Institute. Contact Dr. Garry at [email protected]. LOUDmouth 3 LOUDmouth 20 HAZME UN TRABAJO, MANITA By Erika Coronado O felia was a curandera from Inglewood — or at least that was where she set up her shop, Botánica Cielito Lindo, like the rich endless sky that blankets the universe. And like the sky, she never said where she was born or raised, never where she had visited. She had beautiful brown skin, brown like a steaming cup of chocolate caliente. Her hair, soft and curly, worked a blue-black halo of thought about her head. And she never failed to smile a warm saludo as you walked into the store. One of her customers was Doña Lupe. A tiny, 68year-old woman, Doña always wore cotton dresses with flower prints and a brown reboso that her late niece had knit for her. Every week after the Saturday service at her church she walked into the store to buy (only from Ofelia) a white candle that had been sprinkled with brown sugar and sand, which she lit in honor of her niece, Regina. “Los muertos, they need luz to light their way,” the old woman would always say to Ofelia. She would agree. There wasn’t much that she could do for Doña Lupe and her sorrow. El dolor de la muerte es como el del parto; nadie te lo puede — ni debe — quitártelo. Aunque sientas que tu pecho se convierte en un vacío Negro, y tu corazón en una réplica de barro que — al latir — se quiebra repetidamente. Ofelia spoke in a soft, comforting tone as she brought a brown cigarette to her lips. Her words, engulfed in a sweetsmelling smoke, were the only magia that she could offer Doña Lupe. Nothing you can do about the dead except remember them. And the living — never let them forget. Regina was 17 when she first started to sew at the maquila. “ASSEMBLED IN MEXICO OF U.S. COMPONENTS.” Those were her hands working — as though part of the machine — creating, stitching together string and mezclilla, running the tela through her hands like the hot sand from her pueblo in Yucatán. She had not been home for three days when her body was found in the peripheral sphere of the city, that outside rung of CIVILIZATION where only the beasts live. She was raped, tortured, beaten to death. One of her hands was clutching the sand around her, the other held on tightly to the hand of the girl that was found with her. EXISTEN MÁS DE 500 DESAPARECIDAS. Ofelia’s words were her magia: of comfort, of anger, of borrowed pain (there was an abundance to borrow). She borrowed Doña Lupe’s memory of Regina and spread it like a hand dropping magic sand. The mujeres at the Bodacious Sistas’ Beauty Salon next door reacted with sympathy. They had been witness to the constant beatings that one of their neighbors, Mary, took from her husband. Twice a month after his borrachera, he came home to bash his wife into black and blue. She was silenced, excusing his aggression toward her as this or that. But he was wearing her away, blurring the shine in her eyes until they shut for good. Ofelia’s magia reached all of her customers: the ones that came in looking for love potions and amarramientos; those curious about the Botánica who walked away with a cauldron full of incense. Guillermo stopped by the store on his way to school. For the longest time, it seemed, his heart beat just a little louder when Antonia was around. The only problem, as Guillermo saw it, was that Antonia wasn’t quite aware of his existence. He brought in a picture and a lock of hair, hoping that it would be enough for the amarramiento. “Hazme un trabajo, Manita. Bind her to me.” He exposed his situation to Ofelia, and LOUDmouth 21 a short story she asked him about Antonia and about himself. “She’s like an angel,” he said. “She’s always smiling, always tranquila, always surrounded by her friends.” Ofelia suggested that he talk to her. Pierde ese miedo — fear will get you nowhere. He would not need a trabajo de amarramiento if he spoke to her, got to know more than that beautiful smile of hers. Guillermo bought some incense and promised to come back. Two weeks later he came back to the Botánica. He wanted to tell Ofelia that he had worked up the courage to talk to Antonia. That she liked to read books on astronomy. That she felt an incredible and satisfying awe at the vastness and complexity of the Universe. And that she wanted to be an astrophysicist. The sun shone brightly in the sky full of clouds as Guillermo walked toward the Botánica entrance. The door needed a paint job to fix the cracked, aging brown paint. He thought to offer himself for the task. And just as he was thinking of the way he would tell Ofelia about the paint, he noticed the store was closed and empty. All he found was a piece of paper taped to the door and right beside it, an open paper bag filled with copal incense that read “Pa’ Los Muertos.” The paper had a poem scribbled on it along with the words, “Hay Que Esparcir Las Arenas.” He understood that the need to scatter the magical sands of knowledge had carried Ofelia away. He slowly took the note from the door and read it carefully: Pa’ Los Vivos Tengo: I have Unos ojos cafés eyes that look upon the men around me and women Ojos de mujer that take in (like black holes in the Universe) images of violent things Azules para variar ante mi piel Morena Mine the darkest skin with lines of birth and lines of age and lines, well etched, of scar and pain Blanca como la luz del amanecer Como una taza de leche Con café Y labios with which to speak of where we’ve been A veces pequeños A veces anchos Loud louder until the whole round Earth can hear you Tengo: I have Magia entre mis dientes Para dar poder a mi voz y Cambiar al mundo magic in my scars and in my wounds so that the body remembers and the mind never forgets Magia en mis hermanas Para sanar, para luchar, para curar esas heridas que Tenemos: We have Erika doesn't have magia in her hands, but she has seen magia in other hands and eyes and souls. Write to her with your magia at [email protected]. the Editor From the Heart of «¡Yo no te hice nada — tú estás loca!» Max uttered with disgust, asserting that I was crazy and he had done nothing wrong. Surely, it must have been me imagining his tongue thrusting down my throat in an unsolicited forced-kiss reminiscent of the ravenous “French” kisses of junior high and high school. Here I stood in a salsa club apparently breaking all the rules. To kiss and tell was one thing, but to be forced to kiss and call it out was quite another. “¿Qué te pasa? Why are you so angry?” his friends asked, trying to shush me. Angry? This was an understatement. If it were only rage running through my bloodstream. The shock, self-doubt and “maybe I am overreacting” thoughts all began to gnaw at me immediately, as they do when women, people of color and working-class folk stand up for themselves. Even my female friends perpetuated these feelings. “You guys look good together!” Carolina said, insinuating the possibilities for romance. “Why are you so upset?” “HE STUCK HIS TONGUE DOWN MY THROAT!” I declared again. “Yeah, but you two were dancing sexy,” she said plainly, dismissing my feelings of violation, suggesting that I should not only expect it, but enjoy it. Certainly in a court of law this would be the sentiment. I could hear all the arguments that would be used: Well, what do you expect dancing like that? Look at how provocatively you’re dressed. You shouldn’t have gone there if you weren’t willing to deal with the consequences. Granted, it was only a kiss. But it was a violent one. And we were on a dance floor in a crowded room. What if we had been at a small gathering? Or alone in his hotel room? Where would that kiss and the drive behind it have led? I contemplated the facility with which rape happens and how women brunt the blame. His hand on my shoulder interrupted my thoughts. “What’s wrong — do you have a boyfriend?” he asked. As if the only reason I could be mad was not for my own sake but because my man was going to get upset. Not a month earlier a good guy friend of mine had pulled the same kind of male privilege, ignoramus act on me. One sunny afternoon, he cupped his hands around my face and almost successfully forced his lips on mine. I managed to wiggle out and ask as politely as possible, “What the hell are you doing?” This was no salsero hotshot. He was a friend I trusted, with whom I had spent hours discussing the dynamics of sexism. When I asked him if he would have attempted to kiss me if I’d had a partner, his honest response was, “Probably not.” Is sovereignty over my own body only granted if I’m protecting or saving myself for a man? As Inga Muscio writes in Cunt, “As a woman living in this society, I’m consistently reminded I am a potential Whore whenever a man is not escorting me, which is rather most of the time.” Escort or not, a woman’s body seems to still be perceived as unmarked territory available for conquest at any time. John Mayer’s song “Your Body is a Wonderland” is a hopeful hit that relishes the best of butterflies-in-your-stomach romance, invoking the excitement that can come with the anticipation of exploring a lover’s body. Yet, as this edition of LOUDmouth started coming together, I began to realize that, in fact, the lyrics should more appropriately read, “Your body is a battlefield.” This issue is a tribute to International Women’s Day, which is March 8. It’s an annual holiday founded in honor of the young women in the United States who fought for their rights. Ironically, it is celebrated and recognized more often outside this country than in it (see “My Grandmother’s Knitting Needles”). Our cover story offers an overview of the horrors taking place in Juárez, Mexico, as women disappear and are raped and murdered. Maria Guardado talks to us about what it was like to survive the U.S.-funded tortures in El Salvador. We also cover female genital mutilation, the HIV/AIDS epidemic and cutbacks on abortion and birth control. Times are hard. Capitalist feminism, sometimes known as mainstream or bourgeois feminism, would have us believe that sexism is dead. Women are equal — end of story. Indeed, we have made gains. However, all too often, upper- and middle-class white women in the first world are the ones reaping the benefits of this “equality” and “liberation.” Internationally, there’s another reality. Of course, freedom is a matter of perception, and people have to define what it means for themselves. Yet, as we look around the world I must assert that sexism is far from dead, and we are far from liberated. By “we” I mean not only women, but all people. No one is free when others are oppressed. Period. This capitalist, white-supremacist patriarchy was not built in a day. It won’t be dismantled overnight either. There is hope. While it is true that women are victims of atrocities (and it is essential that we recognize this), it is also true that females are neither paralyzed nor cowering, but are fighting tooth and nail to bring about societal changes in order to muster conditions under which all people can bloom. In this issue you will also find examples of great resistance taking place all over the globe. It’s not that we’re not powerful. It’s that we so rarely understand how powerful we truly are. Although, I must admit, my childhood shero Pippi Longstocking understood it. She didn’t give a fuck — she would not be oppressed under any circumstances. She even (gasp) refused to go to school. Talk about breaking all the rules. She loved herself in all of her mismatched-socks glory. When Pippi came upon a beauty salon advertisement for a product to hide freckles that asked, “Do you suffer from freckles?” she marched right into the shop and up to the saleslady and said, “No, I don’t suffer from freckles.” The lady took one look at Pippi and burst out, “But, my dear child, your whole face is covered with freckles!” “I know it,” said Pippi, “but I don’t suffer from them. I love them. Good day.” If we all took her lesson to heart, we’d bring the multi-billion dollar beautification industry tumbling down. Pippi refused to take grief from anyone. She would not take “no” as an answer or fall prey to any bully in her environment. It was by following Pippi’s lead that I asked Max to dance six weeks after the forced-kiss incident, trusting that I could define the situation on my own terms by setting boundaries and affirming my own self-respect. I don’t know that I’ll ever be alone with him or that we’ll ever be friends. But I do know that while addressing real questions of victimization, I refuse to be a victim. So, here’s to you Pippi! Ironic to use a white girl from Sweden as a role model for our international women’s issue. Yet the rebellious redhead, that traviesa peliroja, offers us an example of how to tackle the heavy oppressions that bind us with a defiant, childlike, “ain’t no one gonna hold me down” spirit. We, too, can make the kind of trouble and magic that she made, exercising the power that comes with knowing what we want and how to get it. In the tongue of my Syrian and Lebanese grandmothers — Al-hurriyya bintizharuna. Freedom awaits us. Stephanie Abraham, Editor in Chief LOUDmouth 2 Speak POETS e feminism: fem- -niz- m – n. International Woman the movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and all oppression By Felicia Montes [email protected] The Women’s Resource Center (WRC) is part of the Cross Cultural Centers at California State University, Los Angeles. Its mission is to encourage student learning as well as to foster an inclusive campus environment free of racism, sexism, heterosexism and other forms of oppression. With a commitment to increasing cross-cultural awareness, we offer a wide variety of programs and services that explore both the shared and unique experiences, histories and heritages of our diverse community. Please contact the WRC at: (323) 343-3370 or by mail at: University-Student Union, 5154 State University Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90032. Jessica Hoffman, Thatcher Collins, and Mom, without whom nothing is possible. DESIGNER................................................ Kristy Wong DESIGN CONSULTANT........................... Eve NaRanong SPECIAL THANKS: To all the behind-the-scenes LOUDmouths, especially Stephanie Abraham Jennifer Ashley Daria Teruko Yudacufski Connie Martinez EDITOR IN CHIEF.......................... COPY EDITOR................................ CONSULTING EDITOR.................. AD SALES...................................... 6 e Front cover: Back cover: Photo by Carol Petersen. Larry Salamone, Iris, oil on canvas, 30 in. x 24 in., 2002. www.larrysalamone.com On the Cover 12 16 19 21 remembering the women of international women’s day femicide south of the border hiv/aids is still spreading the global queer community hazme un trabajo manita – a short story 7 9 11 15 16 17 20 confronting empire – arundhati breaks it down maria guardado tells her story palestinian women – holding it all together global abortion update female genital mutilation abelina colors us blind women, men, children sold into bondage 2 3 4 5 22 from the heart of the editor our feminist sheroes know your feminist faculty dear joanna – a health column the f-word the LOUDmouth list poets speak Special In Every Issue Be part of our growing community. Contact Connie Martinez of the Cross Cultural Centers at (323) 343-5001 or [email protected]. LOUDmouth encourages you to get LOUD! Send letters to the editor to: [email protected]. Or, place them in our mailbox in the Women’s Resource Center, on the 2nd floor of the University-Student Union. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. WRC The views expressed in LOUDmouth do not necessarily reflect those of California State University, Los Angeles, the University-Student Union, or their students, staff or administrators. And, because feminism is not a monolithic ideology, there may be as many viewpoints expressed here as there are feminists. Opinions are those of their respective authors and are not necessarily those of LOUDmouth. Soy una mujer de maiz Y la madre tierra es mi pais I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN Representing all four directions I am trying to make the connection Between my dreams and reality And the duality of my sexuality I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN After all womb.man we are the land Connected to the center The other world within ourselves And from my body flows a constant stream of truth Marking the rebirth of consciousness the re-evolution of el sexto sol I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN The trembles are felt all over the globe As la madre cries her tears cleansing herself from the evil within Her mijo, el hijo de la chingada The creation of destruction, given vida ‘cuz oh yes “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN Still taken from Surname Viet Given Name Nam, a film by Trinh T. Minh-ha. Alone looking into the turquesa stone I see the blood red road ahead The rain and clouds bringing a storm Tensions to all my relations I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN And as Getty banners speak of imagining in hoods across L.A. I am reminded why the world is still a ghetto From the corner Chinese Fashion Land To the vegetarian Taco Stand To the Vietnamese acrylic tips of the world I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN Advertise with LOUDmouth My true roots weaved together In trenzas, china curls, and blown out frizz Realizing that adornment can have consequences Whether Xolotl blues or Nike shoes... I keep strong with my Jordana hues I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN Living in the jungle, Chiapas and L.A. We live to remember the Pachamama’s way I AM INTERNATIONAL WOMAN Mujeres de Maiz, M.C.’s — mujeres en Ceremonia With life juices that flow like water from our bodies, Waves in tune with the moon, Seen at its fullest – by the eyes of those who look to the sky, the land, and the fire To create sacreds from sacreds And drink of these Mixed Waters Designed by U-SU Graffix. “poetry is the culture of a people. we are poets even when we don’t write poems…we are all preachers because we are one.” – nikki giovanni Mutiny in the Body By Susan Ahdoot [email protected] I just found out I’m going to be an aunt again and my ovaries just grabbed my uterus and squeezed. Hard. They’re getting pissed and taking hostages. The eggs are worried and ready to scramble. They’ve elected a scout for a kamikaze mission. It’s dodging guards in it’s search for freedom on it’s way to certain death. Because the swimmers are scarce and they’re scared to commit, hiding in latex foxholes and napalm jelly, killing themselves in their fury to avoid the fallopian falls. Yes, the ovaries are pissed and seeking revenge. There’s a battle being fought and it isn’t always pretty. I’m on a diplomatic mission seeking a cease fire with sweet talk and promises of better men to come. LOUDmouth 22 What feminism means to me… Having the choice to do with my body and life what I want, without societal stigma — whether it be pursuing a career, or having children, or both. Chrissy, 29 Standing up to chauvinistic men even when it means putting myself in a dangerous situation. Reynaldo, 20 A stay-at-home mother. Liana, 29 Having the self-worth that prevents you from settling for being involved with and dealing with the game of a married man. Jason, 30 An understanding of the true equality of all human beings including the one between men and women, being strong to speak what you believe but not to ignore the contrary opinions, leading and helping those who need assistance to protect themselves verbally and physically. Aska, 31 Being able to look at her eyes and not her chest. Santi, 32 Strength! Leah, 22 Sticking to everything you believe in through the hell and highwater of other people-habitshistory-failure-community-society-oppositionhostility-patriarchies-media-genocide-povertypolitics-reputation-status-parents-family-self and more that say or imply that your truth is or should be otherwise. Jennifer, 21 The most basic manifestation of self-love. Nachito, 26 belieF accEptance open-Mindedness relatIonships harmoNy communIty reSpect every man, woMan and child Tommy, 31 LOVE! ´ FEMICIDE IN JUAREZ Milton, 60 Being proud of being a woman and being "thankful" that in this day and age we can educate our minds at our own free will and knowing that no matter which road we chose — motherhood or career woman — married or single, straight or gay — we mean something to this world, as we women make this world turn! Rachelle, 28 S PEA K UP [email protected] Free and Priceless Rebekah, 29 Gretchen, 58 Common sense. Issue 4 | Winter 2004 T H E W OR L D I S LIS T E NIN G ’ CELEBRATING INTERNATIONAL WOMEN S DAY MARCH 8 A LOOK AT THE AIDS PANDEMIC RIGHTS QUEERR A R O U N D THEW WORLD PLU new ficción! ! Everything that inequality is not; it celebrates unity, equity and positive progression over senseless power structures kept in place by assumed and promoted inequity.