This is an article about how people in Guyana protested Chris Brown’s concert because of his domestic violence record!
YES!!!!!!!! This is what we need. We need people all over the world to do this to every, EVERY, celebrity, person, or entity that abuses a person…especially under the guise of love.
The saying is trite but true – LOVE SHOULD NOT HURT!!!!!
The more protests, the more yelling, the more educating…people will stand up for what is right.
For those people who do not think we can end this horrible epidemic of Domestic Violecne…these protestors are proof that we are on our way.
thank you to everyone who has done something to get us here…now let’s keep it going!!!
Yes…Jada Pinkett-Smith, the woman who is married to Will Smith and decided to hyphenate her name…a role model for women everywhere! yes, i said it!
Jada made big news by letting her “I whip my hair back and forth” daughter shave her head. What? A girl with no hair? that’s front page news, that’s a newsworthy comment.
OMG!
Really people? Women are not defined by their hair, their clothes, or the people they are with. Women are defined by their actions and who they truly are!
But what did Jada say to this when it all happened?
“This subject is old but I have never answered it in its entirety. And even with this post it will remain incomplete.
The question why I would LET Willow cut her hair. First the LET must be challenged. This is a world where women, girls are constantly reminded that they don’t belong to them
selves; that their bodies are not their own, nor their power, or self determination. I made a promise to endow my little girl with the power to always know that her body, spirit, and her mind are HER domain. Willow cut her hair because her beauty, her value, her worth is not measured by the length of her hair. It’s also a statement that claims that even little girls have the RIGHT to own themselves and should not be a slave to even their mother’s deepest insecurities, hopes, and desires. Even little girls should not be a slave to the preconceived ideas of what a culture believes a little girl should be. More to come. Another day.”
I go and speak to students all the time and explain that we CAN NOT see women as just body parts, we have to see them as whole thinking individuals. (As i just typed that I realized how ridiculous it is that we don’t see women like that!)
We can’t just look at their breasts.
We can’t just look at their butt.
A woman’s body parts are not what is the most important part of them.
Then there are 1000’s of commercials just like this.
Boots….boots…really? that’s what this commercial is for? I would have thought it was for a breast augmentation company or a bra company…both companies would make sense.
But boots? Really?
Start writing e-mails to these companies that portray women like this, and then write the actress who thought this was ok. The more we make our voice heard, the more we can influence and change the way things are.
As a group of kids were out playing int he front yard, this song came on. She jumped up and down and said, “WOW!!! I love this song.”
As i watched, more and more kids came up to where they could hear the radio blasting from the house, and began to dance.
Not only did they begin to dance, they sang along to every word.
Here is the lyrics to this song:
You and I go hard, at each other like we going to war
You and I go rough, we keep throwing things and slammin’ the door
You and I get so, damn dysfunctional we stopped keeping score
You and I get sick, yah I know that we can’t do this no more
But baby there you again, there you again making me love you
Yeah I stopped using my head, using my head let it all go
Got you stuck on my body, on my body like a tattoo
And now i’m feeling stupid, feeling stupid crawling back to you
So I cross my heart, and I hope to die, that I’ll only stay with you one more night
And I know I said it a million times
But i’ll only stay with you one more night
Trying to tell you no, but my body keeps on telling you yes
Trying to tell you stop, but your lipstick got me so out of breath
I’d be waking up, in the morning probably hating myself
And i’d be waking up, feeling satisfied but guilty as hell
But baby there you go again, there you go again making me love you
Yeah I stopped using my head, using my head let it all go
Got you stuck on my body, on my body like a tattoo
And now i’m feeling stupid, feeling stupid crawling back to you
So I cross my heart, and I hope to die, that i’ll only stay with you one more night
And I know i’ve said it a million times
But i’ll only stay with you one more night
Yeah baby give me one more night
Yeah baby give me one more night
Yeah baby give me one more night
But baby there you again, there you again making me love you
Yeah I stopped using my head, using my head let it all go
Got you stuck on my body, on my body like a tattoo
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
So I cross my heart, and I hope to die, that i’ll only stay with you one more night
And I know i’ve said it a million times
But i’ll only stay with you one more night
(yeah baby give me one more night)
So I cross my heart, and I hope to die, that i’ll only stay with you one more night
And I know i’ve said it a million times
But i’ll only stay with you one more night
(I don’t know, whatever…)
“You and I go hard, at each other like we going to war/You and I go rough, we keep throwing things and slammin’ the door/You and I get so, damn dysfunctional we stopped keeping score – Domestic violence? YES!
This entire song is about a horrible relationship and the only reasont he “speaker” stays is because of the other person’s body. their body is the only reason to stay…so through all the hell that is this relationship: Sex makes it worth it.
This is power and control!
This is abuse….especially when you say we “go at eachother” like we’re going to war.
What’s even more disturbing is that all of those kids (remember this started off with a story of kids) knew these lyrics and knew this song…it is very popular. When I asked them what the song about this is what they said:
“About love.”
“About the way love is suppose to be.”
“About her making him love her no matter what.”
“True love”
When I asked if they noticed that it said…”I cross my heart and hope to die, that I only stay with you one more night”. the “singer” wants to leave.
They explained that it actually was saying that he hopes he’ll be able to stay for the rest of his life…because he loves her so much.
Many people will say….it’s just kids listening to a song OR they just didn’t understand.
OK….but remember, the subconscious heard all of it. The subconscious is creating the view that these kids have of a relationship. The view is that this is a “healthy” “wanted” relationship….that’s scary!
Boys or girls…We need to see people as themselves…not as what we “want” them to be. Be happy whther you’re a size 1, 4, 7, 12, or even a 25 xxl. You’re beautiful..and you should know it!
You should love the person you are.
When you love the person you are, you are not looking for others’ approval and you won’t take the comments from abusers, and instead you will stand up and say…I’m beautiful, and we’re done.
Stop this mental abuse of our kids which promotes domestic abuse and teen dating violence1
Barneys plans to dramatically alter Minnie Mouse’s body – making her a 5’11 size 0 in order to “look good” in a Lanvin dress in the Barneys NYC window this holiday season.
There is nothing wrong with tall thin women. There is something wrong with changing a beloved children’s character’s body so that it looks good in a dress that almost nobody looks good in – adding to the tremendous pressure on young girls and women to attain photoshop perfection. The problem isn’t with Minnie’s body, it’s with a dress that only looks good on a woman who is 5’11 and a size zero.
That little girl who is going to become a 5’4, size 12 woman can’t just become a 5’11, size 0 woman when she wants to fit into a dress that was designed by someone who couldn’t be bothered to make a dress that looks good on someone who is not a model.
Meanwhile, hospitalizations for eating disorders in children younger than 12 years old rose by 119% from 1999 to 2006 according to a report issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published in the journal Pediatrics.
According to sources cited on the non-profit National Association of Anorexia and Associated Eating Disorders website:
•47% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported wanting to lose weight because of magazine pictures.
• 69% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported that magazine pictures influenced their idea of a perfect body shape.
• 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner.
• 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat.
Girls have enough pressure to be thin, now the beloved Disney mouse of their childhood has to add to the message that the only good body is a tall, size 0 body? Enough already. Let’s give girls a chance to celebrate the actual bodies they have instead hating them for not fitting into a Lanvin dress. Then maybe enough girls will get together and demand dresses that look good on their actual, non-digitally altered bodies and designers will just have to become talented enough to design a dress that looks good on them.
We need to see people as themselves…not as what we “want” them to be. Be happy whther you’re a size 1, 4, 7, 12, or even a 25 xxl. You’re beautiful..and you should know it!
As you know…I hope: this blog is written by a committee of people (all genders, all races).
Here I give you my story so that YOU may learn and WE can change this:
Sometimes in life I wish I could go back in time and talk to my teenage self. I wish I could sit her down and tell her that dad as much as he loved me was wrong about relationships. I want to tell her that mom was also wrong. As much as my parents loved me and wanted to protect me from the world, they were unable to do that. You see, we had the perfect little middle class American life. Both parents worked. Both parents were educated. They were supportive of their kids and they never fought. Their marriage wasn’t perfect, but it worked for them. It worked for us. Growing up I never saw violence. I didn’t see it at school and NEVER in my home. My brother, sister, and I were never hit and discipline was fair, but firm. My parents were the type of people who weren’t big advice givers. They felt that we should find our way in the world without much intrusion. When I was a teenager though, my parents said something to me that I will never forget. They said that if I’m ever in a relationship and a man hits me, to make sure I knock him out and never look back. That was it. That was my relationship advice and the only talk I ever got about domestic violence.
Fast forward to the age of 22. I had fallen in love. He asked me to marry him. We knew each other only a little over a year when he proposed and believing that every marriage was like mom and dad’s, I said yes. It was a small Christmas wedding. I was still in college and we had no money. It didn’t matter. We were in love and we were married. Fast forward about 3 years. I’m now about 25 and had started my career. I was college educated and he was not. We were both starting to find our way in the world and starting to find ourselves. What we found was that we were completely different people. I had work friends who spent the day talking about changing the world and he had work friends that were unfocused and wandering. It was a recipe for disaster. We tried to make it work, but as time went by we knew that we had made a mistake. I had fallen out of love. I simply didn’t love him anymore. That was it. That was my crime. We never should have married that young, but we did. When I started pulling away, he started to hold on tighter. The more I showed that I was no longer interested in loving him, the more he showed his anger. Over the next couple of years we fought a lot. The fights were never physical, but always emotional. In time those fights became increasingly abusive, except I didn’t know they were abusive, because he never hit me. I was never shoved or pushed or threatened. Everything I had heard about domestic violence didn’t seem to fit my scenario. I didn’t understand what power he was holding over me. I didn’t realize that I was starting to live my days in fear. I didn’t realize that I was in a domestic violence scenario, because I didn’t know abuse meant anything but physical violence.
So now I’m going to tell you a story. One night right before we separated, around the age of 27, we had gotten into an argument, over what I don’t remember. Our fights by that point had progressed to name calling and he had started using phrases such as, “You know everyone thinks you’re a joke.” He would tell me that no one wants a woman whose bad in bed like me. He would tell me that no one would ever really love me. Over time I started to believe those pack of lies. I didn’t trust my friends anymore, because I thought they were all talking about me. My husband was starting to erode my trust and the strong self-esteem that my parents spent 21 years helping me build. So, on this one night the insults had gotten so bad that I told him I was going to go and spend the night at a friends house. I went into the bathroom to brush my hair and gather some things and while I was in there he shut the door and barricaded it with a chair. He had effectively locked me in. I tried to get out, but couldn’t. While I was in the bathroom he was yelling at me. Calling me names and using insults. The words he used were vile. I sat in the bathtub in the fetal position while he did this and cried. I don’t remember how long the abuse lasted, but it felt like hours. My guess is that it was about 30 minutes. When he finally opened the door, I was shaken and beaten down. When I came out the door, he asked me why I was crying. He said, “Go to your friends house now. Feel free.” He stopped all the yelling and insults and proceeded to watch t.v. I didn’t leave that night. I spent the night on the couch watching t.v. with him.
He never once laid a hand on me. Not once. The violence was in his words and body language. His violence was in the fear he created in me. What no one told me was that I was in a relationship where even the attempt at escaping was seeming impossible. I couldn’t visualize a life outside of this marriage. Everyday I went to work and no one knew about my life. I became brilliant at covering up emotional abuse. Every night when we would argue I begged him to hit me. I would fall to the ground and beg him to hit me. You know why? I wanted the bruises so someone, anyone would see it and help. In domestic violence even the smartest and vibrant women can lose their voice. They can lose their hope and when that happens, they can’t see a way out.
I eventually was able to get out of the marriage. I eventually found the courage to leave in the middle of the day while he was at work. I had two friends come to the apartment and help me get my things. I left a lot of my stuff there. I filed for divorce and asked for nothing. He had beaten me down so much that even during the divorce I told the judge that I just wanted out. He left me with all the debt, no furniture, and got the car I had paid for. The reason for this was because I was scared to fight him over “stuff.” I was scared. Let me say that again. I was scared that at any point I was going to be locked in the bathroom while he screamed obscenities at me. It took me years to realize that I had been in a violent relationship and I told no one for many, many years what had happened. My parents still don’t know. They just think we were young and made a mistake.
This is what everyone needs to take away from this. Violence comes in many forms and sometimes you don’t realize it until after you are away from it. This is what I wish mom and dad had told me that night a long time ago when they told me to never let a man hit me. I wish they had told me that no man, no matter who they are has no right to hold me in a relationship when I’m ready to leave it. I wish they had told me that no decent man will ever leave me in a ball of fear. I wish they had told me that a relationship is suppose to make make you a better person and not a person of fear. I wish that they had told me had told me that crying is not a normal part of a relationship and that no matter what anyone tells me, there are people who will always love me.
I would like to end with this. Once that cycle of violence had started in my life, it created damage. The damage came in the form of starting to seek out men who knew how to manipulate and knew how to hurt. That marriage so many years ago eroded my self-esteem to practically nothing. I no longer believed in the marriage my parents had. I believed that I deserved my fate so that what I sought out. I looked for men who could give me immediate love and who would eventually try to hurt me. This blog post is the first of three. In the ones to follow I will tell you about something lessons learned by relationships I found myself in and the ultimate path out, which is the path to peace.
This is part 1 of 3 in a series of comments on comics and how they are influencing the culture and the world at large.
The daily comics page, like commercials, are extremely important to the world. For those adults out there that are currently turning up their noses after reading the first line of this post…you’ll have to excuse me, but this is true. Let me explain:
(Now keep in mind, this is also for commercials{print and nonprint})
Comic strip creators look out at the world and hold a mirror up it for everyone else to see. They look at the things going on in our society, and then hyper-visualize it so that it is made more of than most people ever would. Then they display it right out there for everyone to see. The reason we laugh, cry, say “that’s wrong, or any reaction at all is because we can relate to it. If we can relate to it, it is because the creator has come very very close to the truth. When these things become very popular, they have touched the main nerve of pop-culture.
This is where it becomes scary….Once pop culture smirks, laughs, and then gufaws…it takes over the idea. Then it creates a reality around the idea to such a level that it actually changes and recreates our society in this hyper-visualized way.
Therefore, something very simple like a family eating dinner, shows the general public that this is the way that a family could eat dinner if everything went correctly. When pop-culture gets a hold of it, it say…we “Should” be eating dinner like this. Suddenly, that becomes standard.
A simple idea of this is: what came first Wholesome America or Norman Rockwell (for those of you who know or remember Norman Rockwell)
So, if a comic is talking or pointing it out…it’s something that is really happening in our society. We must examine this idea because it is not just on the surface, it has become a “normaly culturally accepted” thought.
With all of this said, I was reading the Comics a few Sundays ago (2 to be exact) and I noticed this crazy trend of sexism and gender inequality. Here are three that were the most shocking!
We’ll start with Pickles. This is a great long running strip written by Brian Crane and it is one of those strips that you are happy is in the paper. This strip however shocked me.
First, this strip is about an “Elderly” couple and their retired senior life with their grandchildren and their relationship.
This particular strip was concerning since it dealt with the obvious problem of gender identity and gender equality. The woman in the strip bought a shirt for her husband. He, however, has never worn it because of the color. The color is “salmon” but to all other people it is “pink”. The gentleman is obviously bothered by the color..since our culture and society tells us that pink is a “girl” color. (I mean they still to this day in 2012 put a pink hat on girl babies and a blue hat boy babies.)
To make him feel better, she explains that it’s not “pink” it’s salmon and salmon is a very[tough guy] aggressive, masculine color.” Did you see what just happened here?
To make him feel better she said he was masculine and that meant he is a tough guy and aggressive. Let’s review – we were just told that masculinity is aggressive and tough. Both of these words denote violence in some way, in fact when you think of a “tough guy”, pictures of gun totting, blood stained, destructive men come to mine. This is the violent destructive patriarchal man that is responsible for the destruction of our environment, wages war, and the power and control hungry man that inflicts domestic violence and causes rape. This man is the man that we are trying to eliminate out of our cultural context in order to create a more peaceful nonviolent world.
What this strip si doing is showing us the mirror to the current thoughts and ideas of our culture and society and then in the end, another man delivers the ultimate put down: “that’s a lovely pink blouse you’re wearing today.” What does this mean to the socialized male – lovely – female word for females. Pink – female color for females. Blouse (though the shirt is obviously not a blouse but a polo) – a female piece of clothing. He just called him a girl or female.
This then further shows us the scope on gender that we are truly used to seeing in this culture and society of ours. One man will put another man down by pointing out all the ways he is emasculating himself, because if masculinity is the top of the food chain, then femininity is definitely below that. And if a man is identified as being below a man, he is the lowest of the low, he is insulted by being called a….woman. Showing just how messed up our society really is: the gender that creates life is below the one that destroys it.
What this comic has shown us is the reality of ourselves. Is this the reality we want to see? Even if you don’t see this as our reality, there is no mistaking that this is our culture in black and white (well the strip is in color).
We must stop this idea of identifying gender in a color.
We must stop this idea of identifying men as one way of acting and women as another way of acting. Stereotypes and rigid gender norms don’t bring us any closer to coexisting happily; therefore, we must end it!
We must stop this idea that a man is aggressive and violent, or that is what we will get!
Opt 4 ending all things that promote gender violence.
Opt 4 not promoting ideas that hurt other people.
Opt 4 not promoting power and control in any of its forms.
It’s amazing what we can do when we just talk to our friends.
Communication…what a great idea.
Probably the least used tool in our human repertoire is our voice. This is especially true in the middle school and high school world. I know that those are 7 years (for some 6 years) that are vastly different from the other. The span from 11-18 is huge, and the amount of maturing and growing during this time is equally expansive, however it is the one time we need to open our mouth and we don’t.
Here are three examples when you could speak up to your friends…and often nobody says anything.
Scenario 1 – Someone is yelling at or pushing their significant other (i.e. boyfriend/girlfriend)
I see it all the time. A person is yelling at their partner loud enough so that everyone can hear, or they push their partner against the locker, or they rip the other person’s cell phone out of their hand and won’t give it back till they finish looking through it and nobody says or does anything. In fact, most of the “friends” of these two just walk away amidst mutterings of “here they go again”.
SPEAK UP!!!! You know for a fact this is not right! You feel it in your body, you feel it in your bones – this is wrong. If you say something…you could get hurt or loose the friend, or worse be publicly humiliated (so very easy now that everyone is connected on Facebook. Just a blurb on a social network can hurt you for the rest of your schooling. Scary)
Who cares! Here is a safety plan you can send to any teen you know. You have to speak up and say something. If you don’t want to do it at that moment…I don’t blame you. The situation is heated and tempers are flaring, that get you and the person hurt. However, later on…say something. Talk to the abuser and try to educate them. Keep talking , keep talking, till they shut you down. When this happens….talk to their partner. Give them resources about what they’re going through. You can find this stuff all over the net and at the schools guidance counselor.
Scenario 2 – Somebody (usually a guy) yells something obscene at someone else as they walk by (usually a girl).
You’ve been there, a guy yells something at a girl about her body, going out, etc as she walks by. I’m not a big person on labeling gender, but unfortunately…men do this more than women. What do you do?
Scenario 3 – A man states he knows she wants “it”.
This is the most heinous of the scenarios and the time we all have to say something!
This is what I’ve come to call “rape talk”. These phrases:
“she wanted it”
“look how she dresses – she wants one thing”
“she said no, but I’ll just keep pushing till she says yes”
“her mouth said no, her eyes say yes.”
any variation of this….
No means no. Women DO NOT want to be raped. Women are not “asking for it”. When a woman says yes, and she has not been badgered, coerced, quilted, threatened, or in someway made to say yes…it is consensual sex. Every other way…is rape! As soon as a woman say no…it’s the end of the sexual encounter. PERIOD!
You must speak up and tell your friend…No she doesn’t. She is more than a body, she is a human being with feelings, thoughts, and ideas. We must stand up to every potential rapist and say NO! STOP this! We can not be silent or rape will continue.
When we start to speak to our friends about their behavior, we begin educating them. When we give them brochures/pamphlets/websites to go to, we begin educating them further. We must begin educating our friends, because we are the 1 person they just might listen to. This is the only way we will be able to end domestic abuse and violence in general. If we stand up and say to the people around us, violence and domestic violence is not acceptable in any way!
Who has the ability to change themselves, change their household, change their neighborhood, change their community…or even…change the world?
A young lawyer, from a long line of lawyers, once changed himself and thereby changed the future of India forever. This young lawyers name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
young clerk for the patent office who hated working, going to school, and being a responsible adult decided to often get lost in his thoughts. As he walked along the park, deep in thought, he came upon an idea that changed our view of the world forever. This young man’s name was Albert Einstein.
A young woman ran up and down her father’s field pointing at the “flying machines”. She decided that her role in the world was more than an accessory to a husband, instead she reinvented what her gender thought was possible for them. The young girl was Amelia Earhart.
A young man decided to backpack through Europe. He got deathly ill and was taken in by a nice young couple. They nursed him back to health and he continued on his way. He told the story of the kindness of this couple in the forgotten fields of Europe to everyone he knew, and when he reached 90 years old he told it to a radio show that was highlighting the kindness that people had experienced. The names of the couple and the man have been lost to time, but that kindness endures!
All of these people and so many more have been and are agents of change.
Known to the world or known to just one person, we can all be agents of change. We are the people who will change the world – it is our destiny.
So, who is an agent of change?
We stand at this moment in time and history, we will never be here again. No matter what, time will march on and this moment will be left to history just as all of the past. Change is the only constant in the world, therefore no matter what happens or what you do…you will change the world in some way.
The true question is: How will you change it?
Will the change you bring about merely be more of the same we have come to expect from human-kind, a life of sedate existence not wanting to rock the boat and sitting safely in your cube waiting for the “better life” to come your way?
OR
Will the change you bring about create a better life, a better existence, and a better world for all people? Will the change you bring about be remembered for 80 years or more?
To quote the young lawyer, Be the change you want to see in the world!
The idea of nonviolence is really quite simple….don’t use violence. Done…Yeah! Problem solved!
The idea of stopping domestic violence is easy, stop hurting the people you love. Done…yeah! Problem solved.
So in order to do this we just tell people don’t be violent, they’ll listen of course, and we go home happy. The world lives in peace, and everything becomes better. Wash you hands and your job is done.
In order to end Domestic violence we just tell every person who is dating, don’t hurt the other person. they agree and promise to do it. Everyone loves the way they live and the world becomes a better place. Domestic violence stops right at that moment.
We must accept everyone for who they are right now, and understand that everything they know and do are from things they were taught.
We, no matter who you are, are socialized to be the people we are by those we grew up with and lived around. Everything we have ever done in our life, there were others that reinforced the correctness of our actions. therefore, the person who stands in front of you is the creation of hundreds of minutes of acceptance and teaching.
That person, no matter who they are or what they are doing, are doing that because they have been created to do so.
When you acceptsomeone for who they are, and then understand why they are that way……ONLY THEN.…can we begin the process of nonviolence and eventually peace.
Humanness is that part of them that is truly human, that part that is not created by a social norm or idea, that part that is not trying to prove something, that part that is truly human and looking for answers to those ever present questions: What is the meaning of my life? How can i be happy? These are two questions that we must continually ask ourselves, and these questions are the ones we answer with every action of our lives.
At the moment of acceptance and understanding, we see the real person. When we see the real person…we do not see anything but a person looking to be happy and doing the best that they can to achieve that.
Then we may either show them a better way, educate them, or move allowing them to continue searching. if we all took this stand, we could decrease violence insurmountable!
That is how we can end violence and end domestic violence. Educate all children to see everyone as a human being, as a person, as a person just the same as everyone else…looking for happiness.
Then we educate all children to see the world as a world of acceptance and understanding rather than a world of expectations and promises.
In the end, if a person sees a person’s human side and understands them, it makes sense they will treat them with kindness, respect, and strive to help the other person. For it is obvious, the more you try to help others, the more you help yourself.
opt4 