It’s Friday, and we all know what that means! Interviews with your favorite badass feminists and activists. Whether social media queens and kings, creative artists, sex educators, or just kick-ass personalities, these people harness righteous anger, instigate movements and inspire cultural change. We’re here to honor them and their work, but more importantly, to highlight how we can all get up, plug in, and Just Start Doing.

This week’s badass is Cunning Minx. She is the producer and host of the PolyWeekly podcast, and has been since 2005. There, she talks about non-monogamy as well as kink, providing a valuable resource for the poly-community. The podcast has received much praise, and Minx has been invited to speak at many conferences, including Sex 2.0 and the Heartland Polyamory Conference.

Here is what she had to say to us!

You’ve been doing the PolyWeekly podcast since 2005 now. How did you get started? Has your audience changed at all during that time? Do you see trends in the topics you cover, or are there some staples that always come up again?

I started podcasting on a lark. My boyfriend at the time came to me one weekend, all excited about this audio RSS thing he’d read about in Wired magazine. I shrugged it off as a geek thing. Then, one day, I walked in to a coffee shop to meet him, and he was chatting into a computer mic. He hit a few buttons, and I asked him what he was doing. “I just recorded my podcast and converted to MP3,” he said. “Oh, wait,” I said, “Podcasting is just talking? Like a normal person? I can do THAT!”

Famous last words. Over 300 episodes and many, many hours of wrestling with audio, creating content and wrangling guests and cohosts, I can’t believe I entertained the idea of doing a weekly show so lightly!

The audience has certainly grown over the years. When I began in 2005, iTunes wasn’t yet a podcatcher, so folks had to be pretty geeky to figure out how to aggregate podcast RSS feeds. I remember looking at my stats and being amazed that 200 people I didn’t know were listening to me! Now, of course, we have over 50,000 monthly downloads and a really engaged listener base. I think that’s the thing that has changed the most since the first year—topics come and go, but what has really kept the show going was the active decision to make it a listener-directed show. I chose to cover content I Iike, but the feedback is what determines how often we revisit those topics.

One thing that has changed since the first year was my reluctance to give advice. I didn’t really feel qualified, so I sort of hedged around it. After a few years, though, I kept seeing smart people in real pain with real issues asking for help, so I shared my own experiences and the knowledge I’d gained from them.

How has your personal approach to non-monogamy changed over time? Have you learned any lessons from your listeners or contributors?

One thing I’ve definitely honed over the last six years is my own identity and preferred non-monogamous style—and that those who choose a different style are no less polyamorous than I am. It’s rare that I’ll say “oh, they’re not really poly” when I hear of a person or couple practicing differently from me. The only thing I’m a stickler about is communication and consent—I will rain down bloody hell on you if you do not communicate your desires and activities to all parties involved so they can make informed relationship decisions. But apart from that, I’m pretty tolerant.

Personally, I’m semi-monogamous or poly-friendly. I don’t feel the burning need to have more than one long-term partner, but I like having the option of exploring feelings and relationships when they arise. And while I was blessed with a wonderful period in which I had two long-term boyfriends, I don’t feel like I’m missing anything by having only one at the moment.

One thing I’ve learned from my listeners is that the things that we discuss on the show don’t apply exclusively to polyamory; it really all does come down to self-knowledge and honest communication. About half of the Poly Weekly listening audience identifies as monogamous but let us know that they find the show helpful for improving their monogamous relationships with better communication.

How do you feel about representations of non-monogamy in the media, be they fictional representations (such as Dr. Taub and his wife attempting an open marriage on the TV series House), or “real life” (such as Gingrich’s second wife revealing his asking her to open up the marriage)? Are they positive because they bring non-monogamy to the public attention, or negative for overwhelmingly portraying non-monogamy as a way for dealing with cheating within a marriage (and usually a cheating husband, specifically)?

Ah, that’s quite a question. It depends on the representation. We’ve discussed instances of poly in the media such as the polygamy depicted in the show Sister Wives, with mixed responses. The show is positive in that it does show ongoing communication to make the marriages work, but negative in that it shows a religion-based, patriarchal, heterosexual model that isn’t really representative of how a lot of people practice modern polyamory. And, well, if you’d seen my post on Gingrich, you’d know how I feel about that. I think he has sullied the traditional family values of polyamory with his sleazy, half-hearted proposition to his spouse.

[And here is that post on Gingrich!]

What is most essential about mentions of poly in the media is that there are more of them—a lot more—than even just five or six years ago. And the mentions are becoming decreasingly sensationalized and increasingly normalized.

Similarly, how did you feel about the book Sex at Dawn? It became very popular very quickly, and was received in a largely positive way. Do you think that it can have any lasting effect in the way that monogamy/non-monogamy are viewed?

The value of Christopher Ryan’s Sex at Dawn is that it got many people thinking about non-monogamy in a logical manner. It has tremendous value in that it provided a conversation starter for many people who would never otherwise have considered the biological and anthropological origins of non-monogamy. Plus, bonobos are fun.

What’s your current hot topic? What blog/public figure/news event are you getting really excited/passionate/angry about? Or, feel free to plug any project you are currently working on!

Mostly I’m just really excited about the overwhelming expression of listener support for the show. One thing podcasters never tell you is that we get tired of weekly production. Over the last two years, I’ve nearly shut the show down several times because it just takes so much time and energy. And I wasn’t in a relationship, myself, or even getting lucky, so it was pretty heartbreaking to get on mic every week and spew advice about relationships I didn’t have!  So when a listener suggested the show have a button for monthly repeating donations, I wasn’t sure what would happen. But I’m pleased to report that in the two months since its inception, the Poly Weekly Playmates has 15 monthly donors. And the fact that those people want to hear the content every week has been a huge motivator for me. There is no danger of the show stopping any time soon!

I’ll be speaking on a new topic, How Not to Be a Douche on FetLife, at MomentumCon in March, and I’ve submitted to speak at OpenSF this summer as well. I’m looking forward to both events!

Thanks so much for your time, Minx!

On January 22nd, I attended both a screening of The Invisible War at the Sundance Film Festival and a survivor- speak-out afterward. I can’t stop thinking about what I saw and heard.

Prior to seeing the film, I knew about the epidemic of sexual assault in the military. I’d read the alarming statistics. The Department of Defense estimates that during 2010, there were up to 19,000 women raped in the military. Twenty percent of female veterans were raped by their coworkers either when they were recruits or as active duty members.  One percent of men in the military are raped each year.

Not only is rape epidemic in the military, but prosecution is low and retaliation against survivors is high.  For example, of the few reported rapes, only 8 percent are ever prosecuted and only 2 percent end in conviction. Since perpetrators tend to be repeat offenders, the lack of penalty means the vast majority of rapists can continue raping – both their coworkers in their military and members of their community when they are home. This is an outrage.

While I knew these statistics, I didn’t know or connect with the stories of the survivors until yesterday.

Intending to make the military their career, during the film most of the survivors featured sadly shared how they left the military after their assaults. Even though they love the military, every one of them said they would not recommend the military as a career to any other woman until significant structural changes occur to make the military safer.

Each survivor described their feelings of betrayal for being assaulted by their military “brothers,” and how traumatizing it was to face retaliation from the military (some of the women were even put under investigation and charged with adultery because their assailants claimed the rape was consensual and were married men). The frustration of inadequate health care, therapy, and support was another common theme.

One of the survivors is Trina McDonald, a Navy officer, was drugged and raped repeatedly by other officers on a remote base in Alaska. During the survivor speak-out, we were horrified to hear that during her therapy at the Veterans Affairs (VA), she was told to record what happened to her in great detail and then play that every day until she became desensitized to the trauma. She stopped replaying her tape when the “therapy” made her suicidal. She asked members of the Utah VA present at the speak-out to please do what they could to stop that harmful treatment.

Another survivor is Coast Guard recruit Kori Cioca. Her rapist dislocated her jaw and the VA has yet to provide medical coverage to fix it. Instead they proscribed an alarming amount of drugs, which Cioca displays in the documentary. During the speak-out, she described how one insensitive doctor questioned why she was there and then tried to pry her mouth open with his hands, jammed a mirror in her mouth and only stopped when she got up and left; her pleas to not touch her falling on deaf ears.

Witnessing the impact the rapes and assaults had on the survivors’ family members both in the film and at the speak-out was devastating. Many of the women were married to members of the military or had fathers serving. Most of the men left once they found out what happened and to this day and their every-day life is forever changed as they work to help their loved ones recover their health, their dignity, their life. It was their tears that moved me to tears. I am not a survivor of sexual assault but I know too well the same feeling of helplessness of trying to make things better for loved ones who are survivors and who are in so much pain. Not everything was sad, however. There were messages of hope everywhere. The film showed dedicated members of Congress working to create and pass a legislative fix. We saw brave survivors, including Cicoca, and their lawyer Susan Burke sue the Department of Defense for violating their constitutional rights. And even though the district court judge dismissed the case last month, ruling that rape in the military is an occupational hazard for which you cannot sue the government, they are appealing the decision. The love the survivors’ families show them was also a positive force throughout the film.

During the survivor speak-out, more hope emerged. Survivor after survivor said that working with film producer Amy Ziering was better therapy than anything they went through at the VA because she actually let them talk and listened to their stories without cutting them off or dismissing them. One survivor from Salt Lake City who was not in the film but simply heard about the event and decided to attend said that 90 minutes of watching the film did more good for her than had her years of therapy with VA therapists.

The survivors said once they began working on the film, it was heartening to know they weren’t alone in dealing with these issues. They now had a band of people who had gone through it too and with whom they could advocate for a better military. The film was a turning point for many of them and also a way to reclaim their voices. They hoped it could be a turning point for all the survivors who view the film.

Some of the spouses of survivors spoke at the session too, and they said how cathartic it was to be part of the film. One husband of a survivor said, “It’s hard to know where you can make a difference in the world” but that the film showed him how he and his wife can: by speaking out and advocating for changes.

You don’t just have to be a survivor or the loved one of a survivor to make a difference. If you want to do something, please:

• Sign and share a petition asking for structural changes in the military.
• When the film is available, watch it, tell your friends about it, or host a screening party.
•  Send concrete and pragmatic recommendations for changes to the filmmakers.
• Keep up with the Take Action page to find out what else you can do.

It will take all of our voices to ensure that the military does the right thing.

In Lebanon (or at least, in Beirut) the joke is that it is equally likely to see a woman in a mini skirt as it is to see a woman in a hijab.

In Lebanon (or at least, in Beirut), European tourists feel at ease that the Lebanese still speak a post-colonial French, and let Beirut be called the Paris of the Middle East.

In Lebanon (or at least, in Beirut), tourists and Lebanese alike flock to the beaches and the nightclubs, openly drinking alcohol, smoking hookahs, and belly dancing to both popular western and Arabic music, creating a strange moment that many see as cultural influence, and many others see as cultural infiltration.

Still—despite the post-colonial familiarity and acceptability of Lebanese culture—Lebanese women remain in many ways decorative objects, openly ignored, slighted or discriminated against in legislation. In Lebanon, a woman cannot pass on her Lebanese nationality to her children. In Lebanon, a woman is not protected from domestic abuse—because the law does not recognize domestic abuse as a crime. In Lebanon, a woman is not protected from martial rape, because the law explicitly states that a married man is entitled to have his wife sexually whenever he pleases.

In Lebanon, if a man rapes an unmarried woman his crime is absolved so long as he proposes marriage to the victim. If she rejects his proposal, his prison sentence is shortened to six months.

If she is not a virgin—or her hymen happened to be previously broken through a myriad of non-sexual means—this is not even an option, because it her rape cannot be proven and counted as rape.

If she is a perfect victim—which in Lebanon means virginal, religious, and focused on either being or becoming the perfect wife and mother—and if that rape case is even reported, the media obsesses over the ethnic and religious identity of the victim and perpetrator, detracting from the universal, horrific nature of the crime itself. In one instance at the end of last year, a young woman named Myriam Achkar was tragically sexually assaulted and then murdered in a Lebanese suburb of Beirut, and though this was the story—an innocent woman was the unfortunate, undeserving victim of a violent, horrible crime, the story that was conveyed through Lebanese media was different. As Lebanese journalist and feminist collective organizer Nadine Moawad wrote at the time,

That’s what the story is: A young woman, 28, takes a 20-minute walk from her home in the suburbs and gets sexually attacked and murdered by a man. But that’s not the story we’re hearing everywhere. What we’re hearing is: A young, Christian, virgin woman, 28, takes a 20-minute walk from her home to a church to pray, and gets sexually attacked and murdered by a Syrian worker.

As rape is conflated with ethnic and religious identities, a rape myth that only the lower class, non-Lebanese Syrian can rape a virginal, Christian Lebanese woman as she is coming home from praying at the church is perpetuated. If he were a wealthy Christian Lebanese man, and she was at a nightclub in Beirut—or worse, his wife–the crime would still be rape, but the story would not be told.

Lebanese women (and men) are beginning to stand up. Last week, the feminist anti-violence collective Nasawiya organized a march through the streets of Beirut, demanding that marital rape and domestic violence be addressed, and that women receive greater protection in the law.

I care about this deeply—because not only am I female and an anti-rape and sexual violence activist, but I am Lebanese-American. I have never been to Lebanon—but I know what it is like to stand up to Islamophobic and Arabophobic people in both France and the United States, and tell them that I am Lebanese. I know that after an awkward moment, they typically tell me that being Lebanese is “good Arab” and “not really the Arab world” and then there is an awkward sentence about how much they love hummus or how Lebanese women are notoriously beautiful.

I want to tell them that there is no such thing as “Good Arab” and “Bad Arab,” and just because Lebanon is characterized by colonial influence and has lower rates of visitor warnings, doesn’t mean that we/they do not have heinous political problems. I want to tell them that we/they can solve these problems with the just way, not the be all and end all, hideously flawed western way.

I know what it is like when a cab driver asks me where I am from, that he is curious because I am brown like him, and might share a common culture or common language. I know that no matter how much I would like to simply say, “San Francisco” and have my cultural loose ends tie themselves behind me, that with being questionably brown on American soil invites a series of questions on just how brown you happen to be.

I know that when I say, “Part of my mother’s family is Lebanese”—because that’s what seems to make the most sense—the next question is, “You’re mother’s family, are they Christian?”

I know what it is like almost three full generations later to wonder why the hell this even matters—but I know for many Lebanese women (and men) it can matter very much.  I know that three generations later, through the fault of my unquestionably ethnic spice rack, the family recipes that I grew up with as “normal” (but are far too characterized by generous helpings of lamb, bulghar wheat, parsley, and cinnamon to be considered “American”), big eyes, and skin just brown enough to beg the question, “what are you?” that I have a personal, selfish stake in these women’s lives, well-being and daily bull shit—because it is just an accident that I am not one of them.

As Lebanon moves forward, and Lebanese feminists like the members of Nasawiya begin to stand up, rejecting the decorative role that society has imposed upon them and demanding that anti-violence legislation is written and implemented into the legal and cultural code, I am following half a world away with baited breath and excitement, wishing that I could also close my computer and take to the streets of Beirut. I hope that I finally visit Lebanon soon—and that when I do, I don’t have to take to the streets because Lebanese women are protected by the law and treated as equals, not because of the colonial savior of western influence or infiltration, but because women everywhere, around the world—regardless of race, religious affiliation, or ethnicity—deserve their issues to be addressed and respected in the law.

In Lebanon, the women and men—regardless of ethnicity, class, and religious affiliation—are fighting for this right.

One of the most important and most tricky issues when it comes to sex is what we mean by consent. The notion of consent is often used to explain the difference between kinky sex and abuse, for example. And it’s almost always part of the conversation when we talk about how to tell sex and rape apart.

When I talk with people about what I think consent means, I usually use a three part definition:

• You have to say yes. Giving consent means that you have actively taken action. Consent is more than not saying “no.”
• You have to be able to say no. If you don’t have the freedom to say no without repercussions, you can’t actually give consent. A gun held to your head, whether literal or metaphorical, means you can’t truly consent.
• You have to understand the consequences of saying yes or no. If you’re too drunk or wasted, if you lack the mental capacity, if you don’t understand what you’re agreeing to, it doesn’t count. [As an aside, I don't know when kids are able to consent. Different jurisdictions peg it at different ages, although I know some 15 year olds who are more able to do it than some 40 year olds. All I know is that kids are usually ready after they think they are and before their parents think they are.]

Although this definition of consent isn’t 100% complete, and it certainly leaves room for ambiguity, debate, and discussion, I’ve always thought that it covered most of the more important issues. At least until I read this article one the Kinsey Institute’s website, discussing the research article Sex without Desire: Characteristics of Occasions of Sexual Compliance in Young Adults’ Committed Relationships. They had 63 18-24-year olds in heterosexual relationships keep a journal of their sexual activity and 17% of the events were rated as “sexually compliant” (which was defined as “willingly engaging in sexual activity that one does not desire”).

Contrary to what some might expect, they didn’t find any gender differences in reports of sexual compliance. But both the men and women they studied said that men were more likely to initiate sexually compliant experiences, which means that guys are initiating sex even when they were complying. I suspect that there are a lot of reasons for that, including thinking they should have sex, or thinking that their girlfriends wanted it, or buying into a performance model of male sexuality.

Sometimes, people complied with sex in order to maintain the relationship, just as we might comply with doing the dishes or running errands. Other reasons included feeling low sexual desire and having past experiences of being pressured. And although it wasn’t among the themes that the researchers identified, I also wonder about one’s self-esteem, history of sexual assault, vocabulary around sexuality, and ability to set boundaries in other aspects of the relationship.

I also wonder about the relationships between sexual compliance and resentment. Doing something that we don’t really want to do in order to please a partner can easily fuel resentment, which is a great way to kill a relationship, and I’d be curious to see research that tracked couples over time to see how their level of sexual compliance influenced their relationship. I’m pretty sure there’s a strong correlation.

I’m glad to see research beginning to explore the nuances of consent. After all, consent doesn’t necessarily imply enthusiasm. And while I’m a fan of the BDSM community’s standard of Safe, Sane, and Consensual (and the more recent version, Risk-Aware Consensual Kink) , there’s clearly more to it than consent. I’ll be curious to see further work in this area.

An article posted  on the music news website NME reported that Jay-Z has vowed to stop using the word ‘bitch’ in his songs. The article reported that he made the vow in a poem he wrote to his newborn daughter, Blue Ivy. Looking at how widely used misogynistic language is within Hip-Hop and Jay-Z’s high profile within the world of Hip-Hop and pop culture, this is huge.

This revelation also brings up some interesting thoughts about how many men think differently about how women should be treated when they think about their own daughters. Many men feel perfectly fine objectifying women’s bodies as sexual objects and using degrading language but protest when their daughters go out wearing revealing clothing. Why is there this double standard, and why does it take the birth of a daughter to make some men realize that women shouldn’t be denigrated in musical lyrics (or anywhere)?

I think a lot of it comes down to a feeling among many men that they have a right to control the sexuality of women. They feel like they have a right to disrespect and objectify women and also feel like they have a right to control the sexuality of their daughters. These two thoughts are linked through the existence of the system of sexual misogyny where men feel entitled to control women’s sexualities.

Sometimes, having a daughter makes men realize for the first time that we live in a society that disrespects women and denies them sexual freedom. What is it about having a daughter that makes men have this epiphany? I think there is a lot of paternalism (literally) when men say that they will stop acting sexist for the sake of their daughter(s). Men should be actively working against sexism and misogyny even if they do not have a daughter, a sister or a mother. While many men may only feel a responsibility to their female relations, we should just respect everyone, regardless of their gender.

It was later reported that Jay-Z’s publicist has denied that Jay-Z ever wrote such a poem and will, as such, continue to denigrate women through his lyrics. I guess that my hope that Jay-Z would be a trendsetter within hip-hop was misplaced.

(Jamie has actually been with us for a few months, but she hasn’t had the chance yet to properly introduce herself. So, it’s high time we make up on that. We’re so glad to have Jamie on the team!)

Hello readers!

I’ve been a writer for The Line Campaign since August 2011 when I saw the call for bloggers and jumped at the opportunity to blog with such an awesome team working to empower young leaders to end sexual violence in such a creative and participatory way.

I’m an NYC based writer and activist with an academic background in political theory and an interest in the intersectionality of feminism, queer theory and critical animal studies. I have worked specifically on projects addressing gender mainstreaming following the passing of United Nations Resolution 1325 working to incorporate more women in all aspects of peacekeeping and peacebuilding. I currently serve as the communications and outreach intern with the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders writing their newsletter, member profiles and press releases.

In addition for writing for The Line Campaign I’m also a contributing editor at Autostraddle, an intelligent, hilarious and provocative feminist online community for a new generation of kickass lesbian, bisexual and otherwise inclined ladies (and their friends), and One Green Planet, an online ecosystem that draws links between the environment, animals and vegan living.

Follow me on twitter @jamiejhagen or check out my website. I ook forward to continuing to build connections between movements and address issues of sexual violence and the LGBTQ community in the coming year!

It’s Friday, and we all know what that means! Interviews with your favorite badass feminists and activists. Whether social media queens and kings, creative artists, sex educators, or just kick-ass personalities, these people harness righteous anger, instigate movements and inspire cultural change. We’re here to honor them and their work, but more importantly, to highlight how we can all get up, plug in, and Just Start Doing.

Today’s Badass is Salamishah Tillet. Dr. Salamishah Tillet is an assistant professor of English and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of the forthcoming book, “Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post-Civil Rights Imagination.” She is a rape survivor and the co-founder of the nonprofit organization A Long Walk Home Inc., which uses art therapy and the visual and performing arts to end violence against girls and women. You can follow her on Twitter.

Let’s hear what she says about her work!

You are a professor, author, activist and co-founder of a non-profit organization. Sounds like you lead a pretty busy, full life! How did you end up there? Did you always know that you wanted to do this work, or was it something that developed along the way?

I didn’t always know I wanted to do this work or rather I didn’t always know I could this work.  Like many people, I started exploring my academic interests and activism while I was in college.  I knew that I loved literature and was deeply interested in how art could be used to change the world for the better.  I was an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, which is located in the predominately working-class, African American community in Philadelphia, and everyday I was confronted with the disparity between those who had access and those who didn’t.  I spent most of my college days learning about writers like Jean Toomer, Ann Petry, and Rita Dove, and my evening and weekends doing community work in West Philadelphia.   But, the most important life changing experience for me occurred my junior year when two of my friends were physically assaulted by men they were dating and I was sexually assaulted during my study abroad program in Kenya.  After that, I knew that I had to do something to prevent other people from ever experiencing those kinds of violence.

How do the different areas of your work interact? Does your feminism and activism inform your academic work, and vice versa? Do you feel that more academics should try to connect these fields?

I see myself as feminist, particularly a black feminist, inside and outside the classroom.  For me, it is not simply an ideology or theory but a way of being in the world.  This means that I teach courses on black women’s literature and music, write about sexuality and gender in popular culture and politics, and actively work with fellow feminists to achieve gender justice.  I guess I truly believe the adage: “the personal is political,” because I can’t imagine a more liberating and fulfilling life than mirroring a politics of sisterhood in all my relationships, whether it is mentoring to my students, living my activism, or simply being a good friend.

One of your activist ventures is the non-profit organization A Long Walk Home, Inc. Can you tell us what your hopes and goals are for that organization, and how you feel that art therapy and the performing arts can help end violence against women?

A Long Walk is one of my proudest accomplishments.  It grew out of a project that my younger sister, Scheherazade Tillet, created when she was in college after she learned that I was raped. She was a budding social documentary photographer at the time and asked me if she could document my healing process.  That was in 1998, before documenting rape survivors was fashionable.  She later added a cast of women artists, music, dance, poetry, and interviews with me to bring her photographs to life. We later named the multimedia performance, “Story Of A Rape Survivor” (SOARS).  As we toured SOARS around the country, we noticed three things: (1) art brought out non-traditional student populations, people of color and men, to anti-rape events; (2) a woman of color could be the face of the anti-rape movement; and (3) more students were willing to share their own stories of sexual assault and seek help.   Art seemed to inspire new dialogues and new actions.  So, when we decided to expand and use art therapy and visual and performing arts to organize high school students with our Girl/Friends Leadership Institute, we believed that art could not only attract a new generation of activists.  Our own feminist boot camp, Girl/Friends encourages girls to use art to find their voices, organize their peers, and to generate policies to end gender violence in their communities.  Given how heavy these topics are, both art therapy and the visual and performing arts gives everyone with whom we work an opportunity to release and reinvigorate themselves to keep fighting the next day.

Another project that you are currently working on is a book on the civil rights activist Nina Simone. What inspired you to write this book, and what do you hope your message will be to your readers?

I fell in love with Nina Simone when I was writing my dissertation.  I would listen to her music as I wrote so when I began thinking of my second book (the first, “Sites of Slavery” comes out this July), it seemed like a natural choice.  I believe that she is simply one of the most brilliant artists of the twentieth century because her performances refused and redefined musical, racial, and gender boundaries.   Her political commitment to the Civil Rights movement is well-documented, but I am amazed by her ability to blend so many musical traditions, like classical music, rock, and jazz, while being a bridge for so many political generations, such as feminism, Black Power, and hip hop.   She is a wonderful model for my generation of artists and activists because, like Harry Belafonte or Miriam Makeba, she didn’t flinch in the face of power.

What’s an issue that is currently on your mind?  Anything you’re really excited about or really disappointed in? Any big goals for the year 2012?

I am really excited that there is so much energy about ending violence against girls and women.  The mix of traditional community organizing and the birth of social media activism make me feel like there are more people, globally and locally, that are make a big difference in this fight.   But, I am most excited about the youth leaders in out Girl/Friends Leadership Institute in Chicago. Each year, Girl/Friends attracts more teen girls from Chicago’s Westside and Southside communities, who are willing to spend their school year designing community campaigns against sexual assault and teen dating violence.   These girls, most of whom are African American, working-class, and survivors themselves, are such an overlooked population for leadership positions.   Yet, when they have the opportunity to change the world for better, their vision is so bold and radical, I feel lucky to just be part of the process.

If that doesn’t make you feel positively giddy with hope, I don’t know what will.

A debate started on the Internet about two months ago on the website The Good Men Project. While I am not going to go into the specific details of the argument (a summary of which can be found here), I want to talk about some points brought up that I think are especially relevant to male feminists.

Before I start my discussion, I want to give you all some information about who I am. I am 20 years old, white, male and straight. I am a junior at American University in DC and I grew up in a DC suburb in an upper-middle class family. My first experiences with feminism were at my summer camp, Camp Moshava, that is part of the international socialist-Jewish youth movement Habonim Dror (lit builders of freedom). As a young kid I participated in the annual take back the night commemorations at camp and had educational activities run for me about why gender roles and stereotypes are bad (to put it simply). While my 10 year old self did not understand the full significance of what I was experiencing as a camper, what I learned at a young age has continued to influence me. Since my childhood, I have remained active in my youth movement and at camp, and as a counselor, I have planned and run some of the same programming that influenced me as a camper.

In high school, I was the president of my school’s Gay-Straight Alliance and started to become involved in other activist circles, including the student anti-sweatshop movement and the DC radical scene. It was in these circles that I discovered more gender-based analyses of not only world issues but also our own interpersonal relationships. After taking a gap year in Israel, I jumped into the radical activist scene at AU. I also became involved in the Women’s Initiative feminist group on campus and I currently serve as its director for men’s outreach.

Patriarchy exists. I have, as a man, a significant amount of privilege that puts me at a distinctive advantage in society over women.  I do not think that anyone can ignore the fact that male privilege exists. To make statements that diminish the significance of male privilege (and other privileges) is itself a privileged act.

There is a rape culture within our society, especially on college campuses, that protects male perpetrators while stigmatizing female survivors. As a male, I have the privilege of not having to fear for my sexual safety. Men do get raped. To deny that would be disrespectful to their experience. However, rape culture is inherently a patriarchal culture and no man can be assumed to be outside that culture until he is proven to be so.

That poses a difficult question for us male feminists. How can we deal with our privileges and our gender’s position as oppressors and rapists? While there is a responsibility for everyone to promote a culture of consent, I think there is a specific onus on men to promote consent as a lifestyle. Men do not need to only change their own beliefs and behaviors towards women but also change the beliefs and behaviors of other men. Only when rape culture is replaced by consent culture will men as a gender be redeemed.

(We’re back with another look at our awesome new crop of bloggers!)

Hey everyone! I’m Ruwaida and I’m an ardent human rights advocate, emphasizing on women and LGBT rights. It feels great to finally be a part of a revolutionary campaign such as this, as the Where Is Your Line blog’ focuses on sexism, feminism, rape culture, and sexual consent – all of the causes I’m concerned about.

I have recently completed my undergrad in Psychology and work as a Special Educator at a local children development center. When I’m not working or writing exhaustively in my daily journal, I spend maximum time volunteering my time and effort in different charity events across the city. I am also a part of the Pixel Project twitter tag team, wherein I tweet latest domestic violence news and statistics from across the world. Apart from that, I have an undying love for indie folk music, noisy typewriters, rusty Polaroid cameras, reading excessively and eating healthy.

Although my roots are Indian, I was born and raised in Dubai, UAE, where I continue to reside. This has given me a considerable exposure to two very diverse, yet similar cultures, mostly in their treatment towards women in the society. It has made me aware of the deafening sexism that lies in our society, and strictly embedded gender stereotypes that individual’s hold, ever to tightly.

As a blogger at The Line, I hope to discuss the pop culture, media representations of women, the norms that shape the society we live in, the growing rape culture and shed light on the Middle eastern state of women rights, especially that in Saudi Arabia.  I intend to use this wonderful opportunity and platform to spread awareness about causes and issues that are not gaining the attention they deserve.

I hope you all enjoy reading my posts!