Women's Views on News |
- Documentary shows ‘witch-hunt’ in Greece
- Exhibition: work by Jane and Louise Wilson
- Media Spotlight…coming soon
- Glee’s representation of disabled women
- Bindel out of debate after death threats
| Documentary shows ‘witch-hunt’ in Greece Posted: 27 Sep 2013 08:31 AM PDT
By Julie Tomlin. The rounding up of hundreds of women in Athens followed by the parading of the photographs of 30 ‘HIV-infected prostitutes’ in May last year had all the hallmarks of a politically-orchestrated campaign. The media frenzy that erupted in the run-up to the May 2012 general elections quickly died down once the elections had begun – but those who have turned out in their hundreds to see a new independent documentary detailing this modern day witch-hunt, are an indication that this “sweep” was more than a passing episode. ‘Ruins: Chronicle of an HIV witch-hunt‘ is an account of how in the week before last year’s pivotal May elections, police rounded up hundreds of alleged prostitutes from central Athens and, with the cooperation of state medics, subjected them to forced HIV tests. The 53-minute film is directed by actress, playwright and screenwriter Zoe Mavroudi, and includes interviews with two women who were picked up and subsequently charged with intentionally causing grievous bodily harm. There are also interviews with the women’s mothers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, academics and activists who campaigned for their release. Mavroudi, who currently lives and works in London, contrasts the willingness of the women to take part in the film with the refusal of any of the politicians who sanctioned the crackdown. “The women had obviously been through a lot, but were incredibly brave and willing to share what happened, which of course is the opposite of what the politicians were doing, which is hiding and pretending it didn’t happen,” she says. “It was a craven, cowardly act.” It is widely believed that the arrests were an attempt to deflect criticism over new figures showing a massive rise in new HIV infections in the country. As Greece faces savage austerity measures, health workers have blamed deep cuts to needle exchange programmes for the rise. But with their eyes on the polls, government officials initiated a crackdown on the city’s sex workers. The two women who appear in the film describe the impact on their lives of being detained, forcibly tested and then having their mug shots and full-length photographs paraded online and in national newspapers and on news bulletins, together with their names, the names of their parents, and where they were from. This move was authorised by a prosecutor in order to warn the “thousands” of “family men” who purportedly had sex with the women to contact the authorities for health checks and treatment. Despite the lack of evidence that they were prostitutes, the media promptly published the photographs, labelling the women as “HIV prostitutes” who were spreading death, while television channels trailed their news bulletins with the promise of more pictures. Mavroudi said such blatant breaches of human rights by the Greek state and the mass media was a turning point in the Greek crisis, a signal that that the government was now turning against its citizens: “It was like a message from the government, almost like a public announcement, that the crisis would no longer be reflected in charts and numbers, but it had gone into the body, that it would enter our private lives.” The media’s interest in the story quickly fizzled out amid the drama of the elections, and there was little coverage of the international backlash against the government when groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accused it of violating human rights and medical confidentiality. The legal provision that allowed the mass arrests of HIV-positive women was repealed in May this year, but quietly reinstated in July with little comment from the mainstream media. The fact that eight of the women were acquitted in that same month also attracted scant coverage. “The story went off the radar, it was forgotten,” says executive producer Theodora Oikonomides. ”But what we’re seeing at the screenings is that people have not forgotten and are still very angry about it.” Mavroudi is also critical of the media for slavishly reporting the story and for irresponsibly passing on inaccurate information about HIV: “They said the women were spreading death and failed to question anything that was happening at all,” said Mavroudi. ”The mainstream media at this point just acted as stenographers for the state.” But in a week when protests erupted across Greece, sparked by the murder of hip-hop artist and anti-fascist campaigner Pavlos Fyssas, both Mavroudi and Oikonomides believe the film has attracted so much interest because of ongoing concerns about the government, the police, the legal system and the medical profession. “To me it represents everything that is wrong in Greece – everything that could go wrong for these women went wrong, and they were abused by every form of power,” says Oikonomides. “The real question is what society do we really want to live in, do we want to live in a society where people who belong to any kind of minority can be abused by the people in power.” It was partly frustration that so few people outside Greece knew about the incident that compelled Mavroudi to make the film, and after the current round of screenings in Greece, the film will have its premiere in London next month. “It’s very important that people outside of Greece see this movie because I really believe that the politicians governing Greece must be exposed for what they are,” says Oikonomides. “Pillorying vulnerable people in this way is the sort of practice you would expect from Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, but this is happening now, in the European Union, and I think it needs to be made clear that the loans Greece is receiving from European taxpayers’ money are indirectly supporting this sort of practice.” The London premier of ‘Ruins: Chronicle of an HIV witch-hunt' is on 18 October at Birkbeck College, London WC1E 7HX A version of this article first appeared in the Huffington Post.  |
| Exhibition: work by Jane and Louise Wilson Posted: 27 Sep 2013 06:45 AM PDT
This exhibition brings together several bodies of work, and explores the act of surveillance, considering its form and presence in spaces burdened by potent histories. 'Face Scripting – What Did the Building See?' is a two-part film installation surrounding the shadowy events of the 2010 assassination of a Hamas operative in a Dubai hotel room. It has been constructed using the artists’ own film and real CCTV footage compiled and then released on YouTube by the UAE’s state police. Alongside this work, a related series of screen prints 'False Positives and False Negatives' depict the Wilsons painted in dazzle-camouflage, a technique designed to scramble face-recognition technology employed by law-enforcement and security agencies. Each print is overlaid with images taken from the hotel’s CCTV footage which captured the suspects. Triggered by the movement of the viewer, ghostly spectres emerge and wane into the artists’ own mask-like portraits. In 'Atomgrad (Nature Abhors A Vacuum)' large-scale photographs reveal abandoned interiors in Pripyat, the contaminated Ukrainian city built in the 1970s to house Chernobyl factory workers and evacuated in the wake of the 1986 nuclear disaster. From kindergarten to cinema, the recurrent, intrusive motif of a wooden yardstick, the apparatus of cinema, placed in each photograph highlights Pripyat as a strange locus of fascination despite and because of the city’s radioactivity, manifesting in what the artists call ‘dark tourism’. Measured, monitored and documented extensively over the past 25 years, the city has maintained a human presence in the form of researchers or day-trippers creating an intersection between catastrophe and desire. Also on view will be 'The Konvas Automat' - a cast of a 35mm Russian Bolex camera, the same model of camera used by the Ukrainian film maker Vladimir Shevchenko who made the seminal film 'Chernobyl: A Chronicle of Difficult Weeks' in the days immediately following the disaster. This film is an extraordinary, close-up record of the efforts to contain and clear up the disaster but it is also a compelling document of the physical effects of radiation on film. The Wilsons were commissioned by Commissions East to produce a series of site specific installations on Orford Ness; the result was 'Blind Landing'. Situated off the UK’s Suffolk coast and now owned by the National Trust, the island was once a former Ministry of Defence H-bomb test facility that was operational during the Cold War. The Wilsons installed a series of sculptures and sound works in the original test laboratories situated on the island. Now on the verge of collapse, these laboratories were originally purpose built for the vibration testing of H-bomb casings. Using the yardstick measure as the basis for their work, apparatus originally used by the film industry in the construction of sets, the sculptures were cast in aluminium and painted with individual black and white markers. Hinting towards the historic relevance of the island as a future ruin, the measures also point to an architecture of forensics and camouflage and also to obsoletion because of their imperial standard: the yard (0.9144 of a metre), 36 inches. The exhibition will present these works in the gallery in addition to a photograph taken of the works in situ at Orford Ness entitled ‘Blind Landing, H-Bomb Test Facility, Orford Ness, Suffolk, UK’. Jane and Louise Wilson were born in Newcastle and received their MAs at Goldsmiths College of Art, London. Using film, photography and sculpture, they have created a series of internationally acclaimed works that investigate the darker side of human experience. They began working together in 1989 and since then have exhibited at major galleries internationally. Nominated for the Turner Prize in 1999, they have been in numerous solo and group shows. The exhibition, at Paradise Row, 74a Newman Street London W1T 3D, runs until 26 October; the gallery is open from Tuesday-Saturday from 11am–7pm.  |
| Posted: 27 Sep 2013 05:30 AM PDT
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| Glee’s representation of disabled women Posted: 27 Sep 2013 04:03 AM PDT
The third in a weekly series of cross-posts from Bitch Flicks. It’s no secret that Glee is offensive to pretty much anyone who isn’t an able white male. While Glee has justifiably received a lot of flak for its treatment of certain communities – notable examples include Brittany breaking up with Santana only to be shoved into a nonsensical heterosexual relationship with Sam and relegating Tina and Mike to the background as self-aware Asian stereotypes – viewers have been relatively mum with respect to Glee's treatment of disability. Artie is Glee’s resident disabled character, whose rampant sexism is often played for laughs as he rehearses the trope of masculine entitlement no matter how ridiculous the conditions (in this case, the assumption that his disability should normally negate his sexuality, making his womanizing ways all the more ludicrous). Given that Artie’s disability is so wrapped up in issues of male privilege, I was curious to see if or how Glee would handle women with disabilities. Unsurprisingly, the two brief instances of women with physical disabilities were both heavily sexually coded and presented in ways that policed and shamed female sexuality. Quinn seems to be creator Ryan Murphy’s favorite punching bag. I don’t understand how someone can get pregnant, give their baby up for adoption, get accepted to Yale, get into a car accident, and be disabled and then miraculously healed again in the span of four years, but Glee does have a knack for redefining the narratively impossible. After said car accident, Quinn makes an implausibly short recovery to return to school weeks later perfectly unscathed except for the presence of her wheelchair. Flanked by her new BFF Artie – which tells you that this is going to be a very special minority duo bonding episode! – Quinn tells a distraught Rachel that this is the happiest day of her life. I groaned then and there because I knew Quinn wouldn't remain disabled and this was just going to be her 575th chance to get some perspective (what I like to call Drive-by Oppression as a tool for lazy character development) and realize the benefits of able privilege. The problem is that Quinn's introductory episode with a disability – rather than highlighting all the strength of the disabled community, is really just a reaffirmation of everything able-bodied people find unsavory about disability and a justification for Quinn’s ableist prejudices. Quinn and Artie lip-synch to a particularly offensive duet of "I’m Still Standing," which is meant to be an inspirational metaphor for staying strong and being glad you’re still alive and yada yada. Again, this might actually mean something if the entire episode weren’t devoted to Quinn proving to everyone how not disabled she is because it doesn’t fit her character trajectory. As we all know, just like in real life, those who start out able-bodied never become disabled because that doesn’t logically make sense with how they’re supposed to be! The episode shows some obligatory wheelchair-based bonding between Quinn and Artie, such as Artie teaching Quinn how to wheel herself up a ramp. Can I say that I found the whole Artie as disability Yoda plotline doubly offensive because neither of the actors is disabled in real life? Stop pretending that sitting down in a wheelchair is all it takes to accurately portray disability. Anyway, Quinn gets offended the second Artie insinuates that she might have to plan for life with a disability long-term. As someone who has had a disability from birth, I can’t imagine the turmoil that formerly able-bodied people must go through after suffering an accident. That said, it’s another matter entirely to endorse Quinn’s pessimism as a means of reasserting ableist privilege over Artie because it sends a message that deep down, all people believe that the disabled lifestyle is limiting, tragic, and not all that viable when it comes to achieving overall life goals. Her interaction with Artie pretty much ends here, signaling the start of her ascent back into an able-bodied lifestyle. Of course, Quinn couldn’t pass through her tenure with a disability without some good old-fashioned disabled sexuality shaming! Yes, Ryan Murphy has her take the stereotypical route of assuming that she’ll never be loved again because of her disgusting wheelchair. Nevertheless, sparks fly between her and dreadlocked, overzealous Christian Joe, a.k.a. Teen Jesus. Many of their fellow glee clubbers exchange knowing side-eyes and suppressed giggles when the duo shares a sensuous duet of "Saving All My Love for You." The reaction to their performance stands in glaring contrast to those from Quinn's past romantic duets in its distinctively patronizing tone, already signaling Quinn as an object of infantilism. Disabled sexuality can only ever hope to parody “legitimate” adult sexuality as a spectacle of able titillation. The girls excitedly gossip about Joe’s obvious crush in the bathroom, where Quinn makes the best of her newly lowered height by stoically reapplying her lipstick in the reflection of the hand dryer. Quinn brushes off their teasing by announcing that she’s said goodbye to that part of her life because clearly no one would ever want her when she’s in a chair, as evidenced by Joe's discomfort during a steamy moment in physical therapy (yes, really). The worst part is that her speedy recovery validates this mentality. It’s moments like this that make me sad for young viewers with disabilities who may actually perceive these characters as role models. For those who have lived with a disability and have no possibility of recovery, all scenes like this do is perpetuate the myth of disability as a sexless Siberia of perpetual isolation. Further, Quinn’s attitude is marketed as noble. But there’s a bright spot, kids! It turns out Joe was only recoiling in horror from Quinn’s crippled body because he apparently has a nasty habit of getting boners around her. This catalyzes a spiritual crisis within him because he is against premarital sex. Quinn finds out via feeling his erection against her leg, causing her to smirk in self-satisfaction because she’s still got it. Joe then saves face by babbling some drivel about how beautiful she is and how she makes him question his faith. The audience is supposed to find his innocence and chastity in spite of boners endearing, making it perhaps the most pervy analog to I Kiss Your Hand ever. I know this show is going for the love after tragedy angle, but I can’t help but think it’s a little too convenient that they paired the abstinent Christian with the recently disabled girl. By coupling up the two characters that appear to be the most logically sexually repressed, the narrative supposedly gives them a happy ending while weaseling out of the obligation to show them actually having any physical intimacy that we could expect with any of the other couples. Perhaps in an inadvertent confirmation of this erasure, Quinn and Joe are not shown to be physically affectionate with each other during any point in their pseudo-relationship. Quinn regains the ability to walk after a measly five episodes, declaring herself a viable vixen once more as she returns to make out with Puck for no reason while never mentioning that Joe or her relationship with him existed. On the opposite end of the sexual expression spectrum, Betty is Emma’s disabled niece who appears for about three quarters of an episode for the sole purpose of having a one night stand with Artie while checking his ego. Artie barely greets her before she shuts him down with a swift “oh hell no.” Artie immediately whines that she is only rejecting him because he’s in a chair, which I must say is the first time I’ve heard internalized ableism as a reason for friendzoning someone. Of course, Glee would never have the chops to explore the social complexity of internalized ableism, especially in a romantic context, so you know right off the bat that we're going to be treated to an abridged version of the nice guy chasing the uppity bitch. Accordingly, Betty is 100% sass. She explains that she doesn’t date “losers in chairs” because she’s blonde, captain of the cheerleading squad, and has big boobs. I guess after Quinn, the writers were desperate to show how inclusive they could be, so they decided to make Betty represent every reverse disability stereotype dialed up to 11 in a single sentence. The problem is that reverse stereotypes usually only mock the given community more because they act as a wink wink nudge nudge to the audience that the original stereotypes are true since the reverse is hilariously unfathomable. Everything in this scene, from the way Betty coyly dismisses Artie to Artie's dumbfounded expression after every new burn is played for laughs. The exchange is horribly uncomfortable to watch because it has the snide, childish undertone of "LOL, look at the disabled people who think they can have standards!" It’s also incredibly troubling and disappointing that Betty’s self-confidence as a disabled woman translates into her perceiving disabled men as unfit objects of desire, sending the message that even people with disabilities themselves view other people with disabilities as incapable of being romantic partners, which only validates the traditional able conception of our community. Why is it that transcending your minority into the social privilege of majority always involves perpetuating harmful stereotypes and internalized hate against your own community? Artie confronts Betty later, claiming she is a terrible, mean girl who hates her chair. Betty scolds him for playing the disability card and argues that she did not reject him out of any self-loathing, but simply because he’s an idiot. Artie spends most of his time being a misogynistic douchebag, and it’s a shame that only a woman with a disability could come close to legitimately calling him out on it. Since the powers that be would rather light themselves on fire than let their precious white boys face any criticism, we are left with the formulaic nice guy taming the shrew resolution. A silly montage plays as they dance together how able-bodied people think disabled people should dance, which means swiveling their chairs in a lot of fancy complex choreography. Just to hammer home the fact that disabled people are kidding themselves by trying to have a sex life, the post-coitus aftermath shows Artie and Betty sharing a chuckle over the fact that neither of them felt anything, so they can’t possibly determine if the sex was good or not. So to sum up, women with disabilities are constantly compelled to address the elephant in the room that is their presumably absent sexuality. You are allowed two modes: sad, stoic, and sexless; or cruel, bitchy, and promiscuous. Both are media stereotypes that women have faced before, but it becomes especially problematic when disability is thrown into the mix. No matter how sexually active a given character is, trying to achieve and maintain healthy sexuality is seen as a futile pursuit because disabled people and especially disabled women can never hope to have the “real thing.” Unfortunately, Glee happily perpetuates the myth that the sexuality of ladies with disabilities is either tragic or hilarious for cheap pity or laughs where appropriate. In an awesome case of life giving the middle finger to art, the (actually disabled!) actress who plays Betty, Ali Stroker, is currently involved in a relationship with fellow former Glee Project contestant Dani Shay. Their relationship is beyond adorable and Dani even wrote a song for her, the music video for which lets us get up close and personal with some pretty sensual moments between the two. It is possible for women with disabilities to be involved in loving, serious relationships, and ironically, the personal life of the very actress Glee attempted to pigeonhole exemplifies just how wrong the media is about disabled sexuality. Like all women, we are perfectly capable of wielding our own sexual agency, and the media needs to start reflecting that. Erin Tatum, is a recent graduate of UC Berkeley, where she majored in film and minored in LGBT studies. She is incredibly interested in social justice, media representation, intersectional feminism, and queer theory. British television and Netflix consume way too much of her time. She is particularly fascinated by the portrayal of sexuality and ability in television.  |
| Bindel out of debate after death threats Posted: 27 Sep 2013 01:09 AM PDT
One heated debate ended recently after feminist campaigner and writer Julie Bindel announced she would not be taking part in a University debate on pornography after receiving death threats. Students at Manchester University organising a debate on pornography invited Julie Bindel, known for her longstanding activism on violence against women, to argue against the premise 'This house believes that porn empowers women'. Loz Webb, Trans* Rep at Manchester University, objected to Manchester Debating Union (MDU) about Bindel's appearance, saying: "I was very concerned [about] giving a platform to a speaker widely known for holding transphobic views… "[Trans* students and allies] felt Julie Bindel's transphobic statements and views made them both unwelcome at the event, and unsafe on campus, as it seemed that transphobia was being allowed and possibly encouraged…" On Twitter, Julie Bindel described the roots of the debate as a response to her view "that gender is a social construct and that psych diagnosis of trans is gender essentialist and harmful." The Independent newspaper suggested that accusations of transphobia also stem from an article Julie Bindel wrote for the Guardian in 2004. Despite Webb’s complaints, MDU declined to replace Julie Bindel as one of the main speakers, and a lengthy debate followed on the event's Facebook page, with over 200 comments posted. An officer from the Debating Union posted on the page to explain why Julie Bindel had been invited, saying: "We chose Bindel to speak because her opinion carries a large amount of weight on the topic we are debating, namely: porn, feminism and its effects on women. “She has written extensively on the topic and is well researched and involved deeply in the discussion surrounding the issue." Responding directly to criticism that Bindel's presence would cause some trans* students to feel unsafe, he continued: "We are here to help serve the student body, and we would never act in a way that we feel would make students feel unsafe on campus. We feel this is the case because Bindel will not be speaking about trans* issues." Several people commenting on the thread disagreed: "Oh well as long as *you* feel it doesn’t create an unsafe environment, that’s fine then." "How on earth can you be the judge on whether this event is safe for trans* people? How can you sit there and tell them this is an inclusive event for them when they’re DIRECTLY telling you otherwise?" "…to say that this is not a debate around trans* issues is ridiculous, especially in this instance, when so many trans* people are involved in porn and sex work. But it’s also ridiculous because we are not issues, we are people." On whether Bindel’s presence would make trans* students feel unsafe, one commenter summarised the issue by pointing out that “claims have been made about physical danger on the basis that hate speech is causally related to actual violence.” Some commented that 'banning' Julie Bindel from the event went directly against free speech. "Being in the same room as people who you disagree with is probably a quite inevitable part of debate. “And actually as a disabled person I’d be offended more offended by the idea that I couldn’t handle being in a room with someone who was disablist. I’d find it patronising and a bit of a sad state of affairs." The former president of a debating society at another university extended the free speech argument further in his comment: “Pretty much every public debate is going to offend someone, in some cases entire groups, pretty badly. “But we would be doing a massive disservice to our members if we refused to debate certain topics that were important because they could offend people.” Speaking to Mancunian Matters, Julie Bindel said she had received death threats about her intended appearance and said: "One threat from a[n alleged] trans protester at Manchester is so creepy and frightening I have been forced to report it to the police." She has since reported 2 more threats to the police – and has received 30. On 11 September, she tweeted a link to the debate's Facebook page as evidence of why she would not be taking part in the debate. On 13 September, Bindel tweeted again: "Whilst I appreciate the genuine good messages re the death + rape threats. some of the trans folk calling for solidarity provided the justification for vile abuse towards me. Comparing me to Hitler, saying I am a hate-filled dangerous bigot, etc, just gave permission for it." She told the Independent, "I was coming to debate pornography. I was censored from speaking about something that has nothing to do with 'transgenderism', nothing at all." On 17 September, Bindel responded to a tweet from TransMediaWatch claiming that threats had been made against her because of allegations of transphobic views. "No. [I]t was because of my feminist views on porn as violence towards women – made by trans and allies". TransMediaWatch responded immediately with an apology. "Apologies. We were aware of the topic of discussion but though [sic] the motivation for the threats stemmed from elsewhere. Regardless, we’re very sorry to hear about it & glad that our followers have also expressed their horror that anyone would do that." Quoted in the Manchester Evening News, Julie Bindel described her previous comments about trans* people as 'stupid' and 'immature'. She strongly refutes accusations of transphobia. "I have transgender allies who tell me that this small militia group do not speak on their behalf. I have apologised several times for the comments I made in an article written almost 10 years ago." Manchester's Trans* Rep, Loz Webb, who initially raised the concerns over Julie Bindel's appearance at the debate, issued a statement on 13 September saying: "I absolutely condemn the use of death and rape threats that [Julie Bindel] had received. "I also would like to reiterate that our primary concern was the safety and welfare of the trans* student population, and that it is very upsetting to hear that Julie Bindel's safety and welfare was compromised in this way." Condemnation of the threats were echoed by others, including Henry Phipps, chairman of the Debate Union, who, speaking to Manchester Evening News, said: "We would like to thank those who expressed their legitimate concerns about this event in a constructive manner. “However, we completely condemn those who seek to shut down debate through threats and intimidation. This behaviour is utterly unjustified, and diminishes the cause that these activists seek to enforce." Members of campaign group, Protest Transphobia also issued a press release condemning the threats. Julie Bindel said that she would not let such threats deter her from returning to Manchester University in the future, telling the Independent: "I would love to come back and do something again." The motion - This house believes porn empowers women – which was eventually debated by Dr Jude Roberts (University of London) and Renee Richards, former porn actress and 2008 Best Actress winner at the UK Adult Film and Television Awards and Lisa Clarke (No More Page 3 campaigner) and Emma Bean (Treasurer of MDU), was passed. However, Henry Phipps, chair of the MDU, told WVoN that expressing the result in terms of ‘passed’ was “somewhat misleading”. “There are three ways the audience can vote, with proposition, with opposition or in abstention. The split of the final vote was basically a third each way with the largest individual fraction going to the proposition. “Almost two thirds of the audience abstained or voted with opposition. “The result was further complicated in that proposition speakers expressed reservations at the motion. “This went as far as Renee Richard asking the audience to vote in abstention rather than to vote with proposition. They wished to argue that porn was empowering to some women, and that porn was no more repressive than other media, rather than argue in the strongest terms that porn empowered women.”  |
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