Soldiers NO MORE in The War Against Women

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TUESDAY, JUNE 3RD, 2014
SSoollddiieerrss NNOO MMOORREE iinn tthhee
WWaarr AAggaaiinnsstt WWoommeenn

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A Call to Men to Help End the Nightmare of Misogyny
(http://earthrstjournal.org
/newswire/2014/05
/30/support-the-climate-
caravan-thru-latin-america/)
/newswire/2014/05/29/storm-
brewing-permanent-protest-
setup-at-proposed-tar-sands-
strip-mine/)
AAccttiioonn AAlleerrttss
by Chris Crass / Earth First! Newswire
(http://earthrstjournal.org/newswire)
There is a war against women, and men and boys are trained
everyday to be the soldiers. Misogynist violence isnt the
biological imperative of men. Misogyny, the worldview that
engenders, validates, and normalizes violence against
women, is beaten into boys and woven into the fabric of
successful masculinity.
While very few men consciously choose to be horrible to
women, the reality is, everyday respectable and
acceptable norms of how men interact and treat women
are infused with male entitlement and male privilege.
Together, these norms, contribute to a culture of misogyny,
rape, assault, and emotional abuse. A hallmark of this
culture is the tragic indifference of men to womens lives,
leadership, dreams, needs, wants, and futures. Everyday
sexist norms include constant interruptions of women
speaking, catcalls on the street, regular comments about
womens appearance rather then their contributions and
character, communicating in subtle and blatant ways that
men see women as there to serve mens needs, zoning out
when women speak so as to formulate your own thoughts or
to sexualize them, ignoring womens ideas and then
repeating them back later as your own ideas, and taking up
emotional, verbal, energetic and physical space in ways that
silence and push women out.
And when women complain about any aspect of the
enormity of patriarchal culture or daily threats and realities
of violence, such as the recent explicitly misogynistic and
racist mass murderer in Santa Barbara, men overwhelming
respond in a chorus of but not all men act that way, rather
then expressing a profound sadness for the reality of
patriarchal culture and violence, followed by a commitment
to learn more and take action to change it. Fear of being
implicated, in any way, is greater for far too many men, then
fear of what the reality of patriarchal culture and violence
/newswire/2014/05/26/stop-
crude-by-rail-at-kinder-morgans-
rail-facility-in-richmond-ca/)
aatt PPrrooppoosseedd TTaarr SSaannddss
SSttrriipp MMiinnee
((hhttttpp::////eeaarrtthhffiirrssttjjoouurrnnaall..oorrgg
//nneewwsswwiirree//22001144//0055
//2299//ssttoorrmm--bbrreewwiinngg--
ppeerrmmaanneenntt--pprrootteesstt--
sseettuupp--aatt--pprrooppoosseedd--
ttaarr--ssaannddss--ssttrriipp--mmiinnee//))
/newswire/2014/06/02/the-
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is-ready-to-order/)
EEaarrtthh FFiirrsstt!! NNeewwsswwiirree FFeeaattuurreess
means for women in their lives. But just like soldiers, men
arent born this way, they are trained.
In workshops on Men and Feminism with thousands of
men around the U.S. and Canada, I often use an exercise
developed by Paul Kivel and the Oakland Mens Project. I
ask men, Who here has been told act like a man? Almost
all the hands go up. What does that mean I ask? Typical
responses include: dont cry, always be in control, suck
it up and be tough, and dont be emotional. When I ask
what emotions men are allowed to express, I hear: anger,
jealousy, and resentment. I then ask what the men are
called when they step out of the act like a man box, and a
long list of slurs intended to degrade men and boys as either
gay or feminized is given.
This training to act like a man is intended to turn boys into
soldiers soldiers deeply detached from their emotions,
except violent rage and anger, and to internalize misogyny
and homophobia as a basis for their masculinity. I then ask
men to raise their hands if they were ever beaten up by male
family members or by boys in school for not acting like a
man. At least half of the hands go up. How many of you
have ever experienced depression, anxiety, or low
self-esteem? I inquire; almost all the hands go up. Nearly
every hand is raised when I ask, How many of you have
been afraid to tell anyone? The exercise ends with a few
additional questions. How many of you have used drugs or
alcohol to escape? How many of you have used violent or
dangerous behavior to escape? How many of you have
contemplated suicide? I raise my hand for many of these,
including the last one.
This is the nightmare of patriarchy in the lives of men, and it
is a nightmare we perpetuate in subtle and profound ways.
This is the training of soldiers in the war against women,
and it is pervasive. But this is not how it has always been.
Throughout the world, throughout history, there have been
societies and cultures that were far more egalitarian, without
/newswire/2014/05/26/last-
call-for-submissions-for-next-
earth-rst-journal-issue/)
/newswire/2014/05/04/former-
elf-member-pleads-guilty-
to-arsons-snitches-on-friends-
for-reduced-sentence/)
ttoo OOrrddeerr!!
//0022//tthhee--eeaarrtthh--ffiirrsstt--
ddiirreecctt--aaccttiioonn--mmaannuuaall--
iiss--rreeaaddyy--ttoo--oorrddeerr//))
the strict gender roles, where misogynistic violence wasnt
the norm. To understand why boys are trained to be soldiers,
we must look at the other wars they have been trained to be
part of.
Misogyny has been and is a weapon of colonization against
Indigenous peoples and nations not only attacking the
power of women in Indigenous societies, but forcing
patriarchy into those societies to divide and conquer them.
Gender violence was central to the development and
organization of the Atlantic slave trade and the system of
plantation slavery on the South using rape to both
populate the slave system as the child of a slave is born into
slavery, but also again, to dehumanize enslaved women to
and further suppress the power of women and fracture the
overall community. Misogyny was and continues to be
central to the development and expansion of capitalist
economic relationship. Across the globe, communities were
uprooted from the land, and gendered divisions of labor
hardened: men forced into paid labor to make someone else
rich, women into unpaid, unvalued reproductive labor at the
same time as men were granted social permission to unleash
the rage and misery of their own exploitation and
disempowerment on their wives and children.
Learning this history is key to men to help ending the war
against women. From Andrea Smiths analysis of sexual
violence as a tool of genocide, to Maria Mies and Silvia
Federicis writing on violence against women as a tool to
divide European peasant and working class communities to
construct capitalism, to Angela Daviss formulation that
women in enslaved African communities and in all
oppressed communities have been at the forefront of
resistance and liberation struggles and therefore, the slave
masters sexual domination of the black woman contained
an unveiled element of counterinsurgency.
Today, the war on women is the massive number of women
who are raped and assaulted. It is the fact that domestic
SSeenntteennccee
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pplleeaaddss--gguuiillttyy--ttoo--aarrssoonnss--
ssnniittcchheess--oonn--ffrriieennddss--
ffoorr--rreedduucceedd--sseenntteennccee//))
/newswire
/2014/05
/31/how-can-i-
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cameras/)
/newswire
/2014/05/30/a-
bloody-war-for-
water-
in-mexico/)
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violence support services get more then 75,000 requests for
assistance on a typical day; that domestic violence is the
leading cause of injury for women between the ages of 15
and 44, and the leading cause of death for Black women of
the same ages. It is the crisis of over 1200 missing or
murdered Indigenous girls and women in Canada over the
past 30 years. It is the disproportionate amount of violence
transgender women face from street harassment to police
violence. It is African-American mother Marissa Alexander
currently serving 20 years in a Florida prison for ring a
warning shot, in which no one was hurt, to scare away her
abusive husband while George Zimmerman was found
justied in killing unarmed Black teenager Trayvon Martin
based on the same legal argument.
The war on women is the U.S. governments forced
sterilization of Indigenous, Black and Latina women over
hundreds of years, with it continuing to happen to
incarcerated women. It is the austerity measures of the U.S
government gutting publicly funded institutions such as
schools, welfare, food stamp programs, and early childhood
learning programs, while redistributing money, via tax
policy, from working class, poor, and middle class
communities to the richest people on the planet. Austerity
measures further put the burden of unpaid labor of
maintaining life and society on the backs of women,
particularly women of color. Along with colonization and
hundreds of years of the Atlantic slave trade, the unpaid
reproductive labor of women, is the foundation of
capitalism. The war against women is the gender-based
violence of husbands, boyfriends and the state to maintain
the structures of unpaid womens reproductive labor.
While men, in general, reap a wide range of male privileges
(with access to those privileges differentiated unequally by
race, class, sexuality, ability, citizenship, and nationality), its
time for men in the millions to declare that we will no longer
be the soldiers in the war against women. That we will no
longer perpetuate sexist attitudes, cultural practices and
public policies that undermine womens leadership, dignity,
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and power in society. That we will work against the long
term impacts of white supremacy, colonization,
homophobia, and economic exploitation in society and all of
our communities.
Throughout history and today, women have resisted. As
men, we must learn from and join with feminist movements
to redene what it means to act like a man, so that we can act
like many kinds of men or other genders entirely. Some of
us can build on our ancestors traditions of different kinds of
masculinities. In many cases we already have models of
masculinity upon which we can draw and nd inspiration.
But we must collectively, along with women and people of
other genders, redene masculinities in ways that replace
misogyny and homophobia with love and compassion. We
must collectively redene masculinities in ways that center
visions and values of economic, racial, gender, disability and
environmental justice. As men, let us work to heal from the
training weve received to be soldiers in the war against
women, let us look to feminist womens leadership for
vision and guidance of the society we want to live in, and let
us join with people of all genders to end the violence and
exploitation of all of these wars. Beyond the nightmare of
patriarchy is a world of possibility. Let us be courageous,
and go there together.

For Further Reading:
Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics
(http://excoradfeminisms.les.wordpress.com/2010/03
/bell_hooks-feminism_is_for_everybody.pdf) by bell hooks
Mens Work: How to Stop Violence That Tears Our Lives
Apart (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show
/159941.Men_s_Work) by Paul Kivel
The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity and Love
Newsletter #11: Litha 2013
/sites/2/2013
/10/EFNewsLitha2013.pdf)
Newsletter #10: Eostar 2013
/sites/2/2013
/10/EostarNewsletter.pdf)
Newsletter #9: Yule 2012
/sites/2/2013
/08/efnews_2012yule.pdf)
Newsletter #8: Litha 2012
/sites/2/2013
/08/efnews_2012litha.pdf)
/sites/2/2013
/08/efnews_2012eostar.pdf)
/sites/2/2013
Newsletter #5: Lughnasadh 2011
/sites/2/2013
/08/efnews_2011lughnasadh.pdf)
Newsletter #4: Beltane 2011
/sites/2/2013
/08/efnews_2011beltane.pdf)
/sites/2/2013
/10/efnews_2011eostar.pdf)
/sites/2/2013
(http://aia.berkeley.edu/strengthening_connections
/handouts/1a/Bell%20Hook%20Men%20to%20Masculinity
%20%20Tanji%20Donald.pdf) by bell hooks
Boys Will Be Men: Raising Our Sons for Courage, Caring
and Community (http://www.paulkivel.com/bookstore
/racial-justice/boys-will-be-men-raising-our-sons-
for-courage-caring-and-community-detail) by Paul Kivel
Conquest: Sexual Violence and the American Indian
Genocide (http://www.southendpress.org/2005/items
/Conquest) by Andrea Smith
Women, Race and Class (https://www.marxists.org
/subject/women/authors/davis-angela/housework.htm)
by Angela Davis
Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale
(http://www.scribd.com/doc/189571693/Maria-
Mies-Patriarchy-and-Accumulation-on-a-World-Scale-
Women-in-the-International-Division-of-Labour-
Zed-Books-1999) by Maria Mies
Caliban and the Witch (http://libcom.org/les
/Caliban%20and%20the%20Witch.pdf) by Silvia Federici

Note: thank you to Andy Cornell, Lydia Pelot-Hobbs,
Jardana Peacock, and Chanelle Gallant for feedback.
Chris Crass is the father of a beautiful little boy named River, and
is a longtime social justice organizer who writes and speaks widely
about anti-racist organizing, feminism for men, lessons and
strategies to build visionary movements, and leadership for
liberation. He is the author of Towards Collective Liberation:
Anti-racist Organizing, Feminist Praxis, and Movement Building
Strategy (http://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&
Newsletter #1: Lughnasadh
2010
/sites/2/2013
/08/efnews_2010lughnasadh1.pdf)
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1 comment
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/03/soldiers-no-more-in-the-
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Analysis
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p=518), published by PM Press. He is a Unitarian Universalist
and lives in Nashville, Tennessee. His website is
www.chriscrass.org (http://www.chriscrass.org).

OOnnee RReessppoonnssee ttoo SSoollddiieerrss NNOO MMOORREE
iinn tthhee WWaarr AAggaaiinnsstt WWoommeenn
Carolyn Doherty (http://BEYONDCOAL) says:
June 3, 2014 at 8:00 am (http://earthrstjournal.org/newswire
/2014/06/03/soldiers-no-more-in-the-war-against-
women/#comment-882932)
Leaving another whole point of view out of your life is sad.
Lets use this as an opportunity to heal and grow.
Reply (/newswire/2014/06/03/soldiers-no-more-in-the-
war-against-women/?replytocom=882932#respond)
1.
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