Join director Nancy Schwartzman and Men Can Stop Rape on Thursday, July 22nd for the Washington, DC premiere of the documentary film THE LINE!

THE LINE is a 24 minute documentary that explores the intersection of sexual identity, power and violence. How do we negotiate our boundaries as sexually liberated women? How much are we desensitized to sexual violence? Through conversations with football players, educators, survivors of violence, sex workers at the Bunny Ranch, and attorneys, this personal film explores the “grey area” and the elusive line of consent.

Following the screening, THE LINE director Nancy Schwartzman, AEquitas and Men Can Stop Rape will facilitate discussion on how to use the film as a teaching tool among advocates, prosecutors, and college men.

THE LINE is the first film to join the Men Creating Change (MCC) Film & Speaker Series. Men Creating Change is the nation’s most comprehensive strategy to engage college men in creating sustainable programming on campuses to create cultures free from violence against women.

THE LINE Washington, DC Premiere & Discussion

• Thursday, July 22, 2010  |  6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
• Center for Education on Violence Against Women
• 801 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Suite 375 | Washington, DC 20004

RSVP is required! Space is limited: RSVP ASAP!

Send full name and organization affiliation by 7/21 to nbates@ncjfcj.org.

Light refreshments will be provided.

Follow the event on Facebook |  Learn more about THE LINE and Men Creating Change.

Tweet This: Join @mencanstoprape & @thelinecampaign on 7/22 for DC premiere of THE LINE http://tinyurl.com/linedc #THELINEdc

Sponsored by:

The Center  for Education on Violence Against Women is a partnership between National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women, made possible by TA Cooperative Agreement Award Number 2007-TA-AX-K016.

It took a long time to get there (after all, commuting from New Jersey makes anything in New York ten times harder) but I arrived, in sandals and my favorite dress. The Hollaback! launch in Brooklyn on Thursday, July 8 was an intense celebration, with over 100 hearts gathered for the same cause. There was a raffle, iPhone covers for sale- and I was doing my best to push them, thank you very much- and even booze.

Street harassment is described by Hollaback! as “one of the most pervasive forms of violence against women,” and not many people would argue: as the ladies of THE LINE joined me in what we dubbed a “VIP Lounge,” we were able to laugh about a worry we all had getting to Southpaw: would we be harassed on the way? But street harassment isn’t funny, or light. As Emily May said in her speech, those who are street harassed have few options: walk on and feel victimized, or speak up and risk the escalation of violence from verbal to physical. For many people- of all genders and backgrounds- street harassment is a real and worrisome element of our public lives. And, as Hollaback! correctly pinpoints: “if street harassment is okay, then violence against women is okay. And that simply isn’t okay.”

The connection between street harassment and violence against women is obvious: both are tools used to constrict women’s public space and make them feel lesser and endangered in the public sphere, both occur without consent and imply control, danger, and risk of harm, and both are performances of hegemonic gender paradigms that force women to be objectified, judged by their physicality, and publicly shamed out of control of their own environments.

It is very much so worth promoting the action of Hollaback! not only for street harassment, but for violence everywhere. Do not stand by. Do not stay quiet. Do not walk on. Take action and make everyone- including yourself and your loved ones- safer, more comfortable, and more empowered. Hollaback! is capitalizing on one of the most powerful forces, I believe, in history: voices. By collecting stories and showing our might in numbers, in data, in maps, and in attitude, Hollaback! is going to win the fight against street harassment the same way THE LINE aims to fundamentally change the way people think about sex.

Stand up for what you believe in, but most important, always stand up for yourself.

THE LINE has had a successful year. The film- and Nancy- have touched countless lives and minds, started tremendous heartfelt discussions on campuses worldwide, and impacted communities near and far with a sex-positive and genuine message about sex, communication, and consent.

For those of you who brought this dynamic and thought-provoking program to campus: thank you. For those of you who attended and took part in this movement: thank you. For those of you who write, submit, support, and promote us in your own work and your personal lives: thank you.

And for those of you who want to keep in touch… we’re now offering a newsletter! Keep updated about upcoming and past screenings, updates on relevant topics and items of interest, and opportunities to transform your communities! If you’d like to subscribe to the newsletter, please click here and sign up.

I don’t remember the first time I was catcalled- or the last. I have actually become so accustomed to street harassment that I don’t bat eyelashes at it anymore; I walk on, I attempt to be fearless. When I was 18 and had started school, it terrified me to be out alone and encounter a talkative stranger. To this day, I walk a little faster around men who whistle and men who yell. When I was 18 and had started an internship, an older man on the metro asked me to live with him, and then backed off and remarked that he would leave me alone “because I looked like a nice girl.” (This was a feminist awakening, and I wish he knew that he spurred what became my feminist career.) When I was 18 and had just ventured DC alone, a much older man asked me where I lived, and if he could fly me back to New York with him.

Street harassment is a daily exercise in the life of a woman. It happens to women regardless of their lifestyle, appearance, behavior, location, status, ethnicity, or life experience. Street harassment happens to women when they are alone, traveling with others, and even (in one of my cases) when they are walking with their colleagues or supervisors. Street harassment is a pervasive form of verbal and physical violence against women. For many women, the problem is too pervasive and stubborn and appears impossible to solve. Many have given up in the face of comments like “why did you wear that?” or “why were you in that neighborhood?” For many women, street harassment has become an annoying, embarassing, and secret activity. For many women, it is a form of verbal and physical violence that goes ignored by them and their friends and loved ones.

For those women, there is Hollaback!, an organized movement against street harassment. Founded by Emily May in New York City, I began to consult the project on social media when they had already chaptered Hollabacks in other countries and continents, as well as across the nation in a host of cities. On July 8, Hollaback! will be celebrating its launch in Brooklyn, New York – the beginning of their second stage will be ushered in by a series of applications (for the iPhone, Android, and more) and a new focus on exposing street harassers, mapping where harassment happens, and then attempting to legislate against it.

I was probably no more than 13 when I began to struggle with street harassment. It is a behavior that confounds me, and frustrates me. The Sexist at Washington City Paper has published stories about violent street harassers who strike. (Similarly, she also reported on Miss DC’s recent badass attack on her harassers.) For women in the United States and around the world, freedom of movement is still a fantasy, hindered by misogyny that is manifested in catcalls, wolf whistles, and other forms of dangerous and dehumanizing behavior.

This spring, I was asked to lead my school’s Take Back the Night march against sexual assault, rape, and other forms of violence against women. I marched defiantly and proudly, finally free from the constraints of acceptable behavior and finally free from the overwhelming inability to fight back that so many women encounter in situations of street harassment. From the past week, I can recount around five examples of street harassment directed at me, all while I was walking to and from work, networking receptions, and concerts- and I’m done.

This July 8, I am giving street harassers exactly what- and all that- they deserve: a big fuck you.

Hollaback PSA! from Emily May on Vimeo.

As the new editor of this blog, I want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who responded with such fire to our call to action. We’re stronger now, and here comes the tidal wave: we’re going to be introducing all of our new bloggers and exploring the power of our voices throughout this week.

We asked YOU, in all corners of the USA- and beyond- the same question: where is your line?

And you told us:

It’s common-fucking-sense.

Some excerpts from the report (and yes, we did leave out the reference to sexting as “relationship currency.”):

On the sharing of “sexted” images:

Nearly one in five sext recipients (17%) reports having passed the images along to someone else, with more than half (55%) of those who passed the images to someone else sharing them with more than one person.

On current legal practices:

It has been one year today since the death of Michael Jackson. His name is one that is sloppily being cleaned off, having been covered in dirt, accusations, and lost opportunities (and sanities) for years. He was pretty ridiculous, let’s not kid ourselves- and he was one of the most scandalized public figures in the world before he died.

But Michael Jackson was also a philanthropist, a giver, a kind heart who wanted people to unite regardless of color, work to improve their world, and come together to create change. Reconciling the sex abuse scandals, the erratic behavior, and the eerie personality with his immense talent, ambition, passion, and conviction has always been one of my personal challenges.

In this excellent article from Dr. Susan Block, published last August following his passing, Michael’s sexuality is analyzed for what it was – public property. Michael Jackson scandalized, publicized, sold, and learned about sex in front of an audience:

Michael was raised as a sex object, groomed to be an exhibitionist, dressed up and made to dance and sing for the pleasure of adults.  In his off-stage hours, he observed two very different attitudes towards sex.  Performing in strip clubs at age nine, he saw his “strict” father cheating on his mother and his brothers having casual sex with groupies while he hid under the covers, probably scared that these older females would come after him.  Maybe some of them did.  Maybe some of the guys did.  Whatever happened in those seedy venues, eventually little Michael went home to his beloved mother who was strict in a very different way, a devout Jehovah’s Witness, who taught him that “lust in thought or deed” was horribly sinful.  No wonder his adorable head explodes into a monstrous werewolf right after a girl embraces him lovingly in the opening scene of “Thriller.”

Michael Jackson received conflicting messages about sex as a child in Hollywood, playing with the stars and learning about sex in all of the wrong places. He was caught in the dichotomy between right and wrong, performance and lifestyle. He was often perceived as being confused by and fearful of his own sexuality, which isn’t surprising when taking into account that the fame he learned about sex from was often fleeting and harmful.

The bottom line? We need to start talking about sex, and we need to stop shaming sex. Michael Jackson may not be an “example” of why, but his story is certainly not unique: he sold sex but was raised to be ashamed of it, just like young people here in the USA and around the world. Young women, especially, consume sexual messages everyday that are conflicting and harmful.

So here’s to you, Michael- for always making us think, for challenging our boundaries, and for all those sunny afternoons where I played Thriller on my boombox and dreamt about my future. It isn’t the same without you.

When I saw the NYTimes Europe piece called “Feminism of the Future Relies on Men,” I was a little bit confounded. The piece was written concisely and surely, with no hesitation, and started by describing “women closing ranks to battle blatant sexism, get an education and go to work” as the feminism of the past. After all, wasn’t that just women acting like men? Well, it sure was. The next step, after all, as the author promised, was “pulling men into [the] women’s universe — as involved dads, equal partners at home and ambassadors for gender equality from the cabinet office to the boardroom.”

The problem here isn’t the first or second goal included for the feminists of today; we’ve been working hard to ensure men play an equal role at home. But relegating men to being “ambassadors of gender equality” is tricky when it plays out like this:

Basically, guys are the more effective feminists because other guys are more likely to listen to them.

This was the point where I had to pause for a minute to observe her logic. Pulling men into women’s worlds shouldn’t have to mean forcing them to care about our problems for us (the idea of handing off the battle for equality is a little scary and seems quite careless), it should mean achieving social equality that doesn’t discourage them from caring about these problems with us. Men can be great allies in the women’s movement, and much has been written about their inclusion in the feminist movement. But none of those writings would go as far as to discredit the impact of women in the movement, or to discourage them from going on the front-lines themselves. None of those writings think of men as ambassadors to equality, but rather think of them as partners in a movement.

Men being uninterested in the issues that affect women and their inequality is not a problem best solved by waiting for exceptional male leaders to give us tastes of what we rightfully deserve; it isn’t a problem best solved by begging men to handle our anger, our stories, and our futures for us and sitting back to wait for the day our salvation comes.

It’s also not a problem best solved with insufficient and incomplete logic that disregards our lopsided opportunity to achieve our goals through institutions like government:

It took a male prime minister to sell the legislation to the country, and it took male leaders in Sweden and Norway to pass similar laws. It was a man who championed Norway’s boardroom quota obliging companies to fill at least 40 percent of the seats with women.

Would a female Spanish prime minister have been able to appoint a cabinet that is 50 percent female in 2004?

Would a female Spanish prime minister have been elected in 2004? The chance is underwhelming.

The biggest problem with this approach is the damage it could do: telling women to let someone else worry about their equality, relegating them back to playing a passive, gracious role instead of pushing them into the battlefield and letting them fight like hell, and accepting our current reality as silenced, ignored members of a world population as okay and worth working inside of is only going to slow this movement, and any movement experiencing these same characteristics, farther back.

So to the women of Europe and the world: I know that it’s frustrating to be disrespected by institutions, persons, and cultures; I know that it is hard to work for equality when your voice doesn’t matter in the boardroom or the bedroom; I understand that we’re all happy for the progress we achieve through whatever means possible that makes it more likely we will soon be given the trust, power, and opportunity over half of the world’s population deserves; and I know that it feels like feminism may be too old, too tired, too vintage to take care of it anymore. However, keep fighting, keep yelling, and keep raising your voices.

Women of Europe and the world: don’t ever put your personhood in someone else’s hands.

I want to start this piece by introducing myself. My name is Carmen and I’m a little bit of everything: a bold woman of color entering her third year of college at the sometimes-awesome sometimes-frustrating usually-radical Washington, DC campus known as American University. I’m an activist involved with NOW and multiple student organizations, an advocate who is professionally tied to a plethora of women’s groups, and a free spirit who loves to indulge in v-necks, frozen yogurt, and anything unusual. I have an afro and I’m addicted to the internet, and on the weekends you can find me giggling in my living room.

I’m also the newest editor here at Where Is Your Line?, a blog close to my own heart: I was with Nancy as an intern just last year when she created this website, this program, and this movement. She’s one of my biggest inspirations, and I was unable to leave the project behind in any capacity- I’m still here, across state lines, reading entries and emails and begging her for any tasks possible to tackle online.

My goals for this project are yours, too. I want our message to become everyone’s conversation, our project vision achieved in bedrooms across the country. Imagine it: a world of discussion and freedom instead of shame and silence. We can do it, and projects and movements like this one are an integral piece.

So I wrote scathing reviews of journalism and personal pieces on my own turbulent times with hookup culture, interviewed my biggest she-ro (aside from Hillary Clinton, of course), and then used the experience I had gotten by starting a smaller-focus campaign specific to my campus in an effort to stop rape culture at its roots in dorm rooms all over AU. I know the power of the individual is small, and I know that collective voices have the strongest and most beautiful resonance. I know that openness, affirmation, conversation, and diversity are important, and I want to incorporate every voice, background, lifestyle, experience, opinion, and being into the movement to end violence in relationships, families, and our own lives.

And that’s where you come in.

This is an open call for voices. I am looking for anyone interested in submitting pieces for this campaign as a credited blogger, and there are no requirements- unless you consider it unfair to expect passion, heart, and effort in everything you do. You’ll be an invaluable piece of this movement and the challenge to end violence everywhere.

You can contact me at thelinemovie [at] gmail [dot] com. I’m looking forward to hearing from you- believe me, I’m always excited to talk. Just add “ATTN Carmen Rios” into the subject line to make sure it gets to me.

Your voice can end violence. Your voice can change everything.

A lot of policy language around “population,” “reproductive health,” and “family planning” does it’s share of hoop jumping to avoid talking plainly about sexuality. There are definitely strategic moments when it is important and valuable to use very comprehensive and non-threatening language. However, sometimes it’s as important to be direct. This is what the phrase “sexual rights,” and the work behind it, aims to do.

Sexual rights are the right to say NO…
To violence
To rape
To harassment
To discrimination
To trafficking
To forced marriage
To abuse

…and the right to say YES
To the intimate partner of your choice
To the husband or wife of your choice
To pleasure
To self-expression
To bodily integrity
To a life free from violence
To self-determination
To contraceptive options
To safe abortion
To full, frank information about your body, your rights, and your responsibilities

Sexual rights, like human rights, are universal and inalienable. They belong to everyone: women and men, young people and adults, rich and poor, rural and urban, gay and straight, immigrant and indigenous—to mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, grandparents, husbands, and wives from every country of every region in the world.

Sexual rights, like human rights, transcend nationalities, religions, and cultures. The basis for sexual rights can be found in countless cultural traditions, religious texts, and international agreements. Sexual rights are not a Western concept. They are broad, far-reaching, and life-affirming.

Sexual rights, like human rights, are often violated. All over the world, women experience alarming rates of physical abuse and sexual violence. They face entrenched discrimination in the workplace, in schools, in government, and within their families. National laws often fail to protect women and young people, and global and national health policies rarely reflect the realities of their lives. In an era of HIV/AIDS, young people are denied access to full and accurate information about their bodies and their rights. Tens of millions of girls in the developing world are married before their eighteenth birthdays—many to much older men, and many against their will. Worldwide, tens of thousands of women die every year because restrictive abortion laws force them to resort to unsafe procedures. These are all violations of sexual rights.

What can you do? Click here to read more about IWHC’s work on sexual rights.