[LAF] [allgendergroup] SWOU

Sun Jul 12 22:52:05 UTC 2009

Volodya

This is the first time I have seen your email as I am behind with reading posts for a block from mid-October to mid-April and am trying to catch up.

I wonder if this is why I hear no response when I post to allgender and LAF first hand experiences*.  I now wonder if since you met some sex workers firsthand you have formed the idea that all other first hand experiences which "talk about how they envision their fight for a better life," but which differ from the ones of the people you met in person, are not by "people, who were actual people" but by "robots or victims talked about by anti-sex-workers."  First of all, I wonder what you mean by "robots".  Secondly, I wonder what you mean by "victims" and why someone who is a victim must be despised on a par with a robot.  These ways of speaking about people are dehumanising.

There does seem to be a tendency lately that someone can be dismissed as a victim, as if that is something to be despised rather than despising the perpetrator(s).  For example, when we look back in history we would I think agree that there were many victims of the Holocaust of WWII.  No legitimate view of those victims would decide that said victims deserved their fate, or wallowed in it, or were asking for it, or deserved it, or were slow-witted to allow it to happen to them.  In other words reasonable people accept that there was nothing the victims of the Holocaust could have done to escape and that the ones who did manage to escape had done everything they could to resist the atrocity (just like the ones who did not manage to escape) and usually managed to escape with help from other people.  Recently, however, a point of view has arisen that it is shameful to be a victim (the perpetrator seems to have disappeared from the equation) and that if someone is referred to as a victim then they are being infantilised and having their "agency" taken away from them.  I do agree that it feels very shaming to be a victim but I do not think that saying actually I wanted that myself and brought it on or I decided to do that and went into it willingly changes things in the long run, only in the short run because at least I can feel less helpless/victimised because I chose my situation rather than someone else choosing it for me.  The perpetrator is the one who should accept responsibility because they are the one who chose their behaviour and who exercised their agency.  In the long run it is better to challenge the behaviour of the perpetrator(s), and challenge the system which perpetuates the opportunity for abuse.  For example, rape is commonly seen as something that, if it happens, was either chosen by or could have been prevented by the person who was raped.  Now this is counter to the facts and if we pretend otherwise, for the possible short-term benefit to the woman or man who was sexually assualted (so they can tell themselves that, for example, if they did such-and-such next time or said such-and-such they will be ok and that therefore they were ultimately responsible that this time they didn't manage to avoid it) then things will not only stand still, but worsen, because no-one will take rape seriously, saying that if it happens the person it affected was clumsy or thoughtless and caused it to happen or at least allowed it to happen.

*as an example I re-send one tape of firsthand reports from sex workers who do "talk about how they envison their fight for a better life" as I have twice before sent a link to this video of firsthand reports to allgender group but it seems to have been unremarked upon so far:
http://www.womenlobby.org/site/video_en.asp

Joy

> Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 23:46:52 +0100
> From: Volodya at WhenGendarmeSleeps.org
> To: allgendergroup at lists.riseup.net; laf at lists.aktivix.org
> Subject: [allgendergroup] SWOU
> 
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> Hello, brothers, sisters, etc,
> 
> Sorry for not doing my reports on the All Genders Group recently, i have been
> either missing the meetings or too busy to actually sit down and write something
> about them. But i really am excited about the last "failed meeting" so here are
> my memories and two zloty.
> 
> The last scheduled meeting was on April 5, but the room was booked by the Sex
> Worker Open University. At first they have told us that the upstairs room was
> actually not being used, but we have decided that it would be great to join in
> on the fun. It was too late to take part in the current round of the workshops
> (we didn't want to disturb the participants just to get 15 minutes of the
> discussion), so we have waited for the last actual workshop before the final
> wrap-up one. In the mean time we have discussed some issues upstairs, talking
> about things like sexual education in schools...
> 
> I was very excited to partake in the SWOU, even though i was quite upset that i
> have missed two days of it by then (if i'd have known i would be able to get
> there at least on saturday for a couple of workshops). However, my hopes were
> crushed by the fact that the organiser of the workshop has made a decision to
> make it primarily for self-identified sex workers, asking the rest of the people
> to organise something on their own. Although there was a subject that got
> proposed for use ("How can non-sex workers help sex worker struggle") it was
> pretty clear that the discussion wasn't going to go there. I should mention that
> there was a documentary being made of the event... and our little self-organised
> workshop was being filmed. We did start talking about a paper which i have sent
> out to the list (i actually thought that this was the idea for our meeting for
> people to propose something to discuss, like a paper), as it was directly
> relevant to sex workers and how some radical feminists oppose them. However,
> that conversation didn't get very far, i have a feeling other people weren't
> very interested, and when another person has arrived who made a point that there
> should be no filming the group turnt into a counceling session.
> 
> Now the wrap-up workshop for the SWOU has actually made my day. I really needed
> to have this experience, of having people, who were actual people, and not
> robots or victims talked about by anti-sex-workers, talk about how they envision
> their fight for better life. The room was full of individuals from different
> parts of the world, most of them radical (anarchists, feminists, other
> activists) speaking with the increadible energy and strength, even when their
> language was disallowing them from speaking as poetically as they wanted. They
> have discussed what they found good about the Open University, and how to
> organise for the future, unfortunately i had nothing to contribute to their
> discussion, since this was my first contact with SWOU. I really do hope that
> this is not the last time that i see these increadible comrades organising
> something like this, and hopefully next time i will know of this earlier on.
> 
> - Volodya
> 
> P.S. I have booked the room for next time, so there shouldn't be any problems,
> but we do overlap with the new Queer Activist Group which got formed, maybe we
> can intermingle with them some time.
> 
> - --
> http://freedom.libsyn.com/ Echo of Freedom, Radical Podcast
> http://eng.anarchopedia.org/ Anarchopedia, A Free Knowledge Portal
> http://www.freedomporn.org/ Freedom Porn, anarchist and activist smut
> 
> "None of us are free until all of us are free." ~ Mihail Bakunin
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