for those participating in “occupy” protests worldwide and want to distribute radfem literature, theses brochures have been uploaded to HUB in both MS Word and PDF. please print or link and disseminate widely.
Brochure #1
“Occupy Wall Street is a men’s movement. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
MS Word here and PDF here. brochure is intended to be printed on one page, two-sided, and folded into thirds. text below.
Women as a sexual class around the world share the following concerns:
° Equal pay and property ownership for women
° Rape, coercion and abuse of women in the sex industry
° Rape and sexual abuse of women by men in all contexts
° Global maternal morbidity and mortality rates, and female infanticide
° The harms of mandatory penis-in-vagina sex (PIV), including unwanted pregnancy
° Patriarchal institutions that cater to male interests at women’s expense
OWS must centralize the concerns of women. WHY?
Women are the majority on the planet: we are the 51%. That’s why.
Together, both globally and locally, women and children vastly outnumber adult men, especially white men. Yet, to date, OWS has centralized men’s interests and particularly white men’s interests, even though they are a tiny minority of the global and local population.
The men of OWS do not have women’s best interests at heart.
If women no longer performed free labor for men, including sexual and domestic labor, the current economic system as we know it would come crashing down.
And if the billion-dollar global sex industry were eliminated, the effects would be far-reaching and undeniable. Economically powerful men – many in the top 1% — would be rendered powerless.
But we don’t see the men of OWS advocating for these changes, even though they say they abhor the current system and they want it to fail.
Why?
Because all men benefit from the status quo.
All men, including the men of OWS both individually and collectively benefit from women’s sexual, domestic and reproductive slavery.
That’s why.
And they do not want this to change. But that’s not the only problem with the male-centric vision of OWS.
The conditions for women at OWS offer a glimpse of what “success” would look like, if OWS succeeded. It does not look good.
Women’s concerns are marginalized and we are expected to support men’s concerns first and foremost, and adopt them as our own.
Women are cooking, cleaning and serving men, as men claim all the leadership positions and positions of power and prestige for themselves.
Male-centric sexuality that poses known dangers to girls and women, specifically the risk of unwanted pregnancy is over-represented, and female-centric sexuality that is safe for girls and women is under-represented. Women have been groped and assaulted at OWS by male protesters and by the police.
What would it look like if women were really free?
-Conserving women’s energy. Women’s concerns would be centralized, and our time, energy and resources invested in women and creating and maintaining female-centric space, policies and practices for our own benefit.
-No more rape. Women and children would be free from sexualized violence and the threat of sexualized violence, and we would never be the victims of rape or coerced to enter the sex industry no matter how poor we were.
-No more unwanted pregnancy. Female-centric sexuality would be the ideal, and female sexual pleasure would be a priority. Girls and women would not be subjected to unwanted pregnancy through dangerous PIV-centric sex.
-Financial independence. Women would not rely on men for economic security, through marriage, the nuclear family, government benefits or employment. Women’s very survival would never be dependent on pleasing men.
-Women matter. Women’s voices would be heard, and women’s reality would be acknowledged and deferred to, including our lived experience as female-bodied persons who, on a global scale, menstruate, gestate, give birth and lactate.
-Intellectual freedom. Women-only space would be respected and free from male-centrism in all its forms. We would be free to go to the ends of our thoughts on every issue as we imagine a better future for us all, including a possible future with men on the periphery, or one that does not include men at all.
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Brochure #2
“Femininity is pro-capitalist. Fuckability is pro-capitalist.” MS Word is here; PDF is here. this brochure is meant to be printed on one page, double-sided and folded once.
women make less and we spend more. on being fuckable. and for what?
-we can’t invest as much as men -we can’t save as much as men -investing in our appearance is not a secure investment -we risk extreme poverty in old age.
fuckability mandates are oppressive.
-there is no meaningful choice to “opt out”
-women’s time, energy and $money$ are not ours
-perfect fuckability is unattainable and the standard is constantly changing.
men benefit from women wasting our resources.
-men make more and spend less
-men’s relative economic power increases as ours decreases
-”equal pay” is meaningless if women have to spend more to make the same amount; not that “equal pay” for women is even being addressed at OWS or anywhere.
eye candy as far as the eye can see.
-all of this is very sexxxay, if you are a man.
-women’s vulnerability, including financial vulnerability is fetishized and sexualized.
men have no motivation to end this. NOW.
-WE DO. WE ARE THE 51%.
