The term “gender based violence against women” does not inform the reader who is responsible for committing violence against women. “Gender” is a descriptive term not a human entity. “Gender” cannot commit violence against women so who is being protected by not being named? Perhaps it is women because “gender” is commonly perceived as attributable to women since men have always claimed male as the default generic human and hence no need to name men/males as men/males. Obviously the entities being protected are men because naming men/males as the perpetrators will immediately instigate a male backlash of claims “you are demonising men” or “not all men are violent!”
Tag: 1970s Women’s Movement
Left on Pearl – 1970s Women’s Liberation Remembered
1970s Women’s Liberation Movement activism not only brought together women of diverse backgrounds. It ensured women’s voices were heard in political struggles of the time which women saw as intimately connected with women’s drive for a new world where egalitarian ideals would be met and women’s independence, bodily integrity and empowerment would be central. The 888 action was determined that women’s space should be free for women to consciousness raise and engage with the antiwar movement, civil rights, black power, lesbian and gay rights movements on women’s terms. Consistent with past wmen’s movement struggles, affordable housing was one of the issues taken up – reminiscent of Jane Addams and the Chicago movement of times past, where women trade unionists and suffragists like Alice Henry and Miles Franklin took up the banner.