Commentary

Day 115 – Headlines

Philip Zimbardo – “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names can sometimes kill you.”

Since the latest massacre in the US hit the headlines in the past week the internet has simply erupted with articles, videos and commentary addressing the topics of toxic misogyny, white middle-class male expectation and sexual harassment. Here, only 30 days ago did we argue these same points.

The facts remain that 2 women and 4 men are dead and once again in the wake of a killing spree the victims identities are of less interest than that of their executioner. Browsing through countless reports in the last 6 days I only once came across the victims names, in brackets. Most of the media-obsessed globe knows about the killer, knows his name, wants his entire medical and family history, wants to read his ‘manifesto’ and has seen the image of his sun-drenched face as he sat relaying the woes of his existence days before his final performance.

No one can object to opening discourse on subjects that have been under-debated for years but the problem is that it’s extremely difficult to foresee any real change coming from this. The Isla Vista gunman will have his fifteen minutes of infamy and so will the issues his crimes have shone the spotlight on. By focusing on him as the archetypal white male misogynist only gives him the attention and platform he craved all along. Why not sever all reference to the ‘Virgin Killer’ and leave him and his hatred to live in the dust where it belongs.

Roughly 88 people suffer from gun deaths each day in the US, someone is sexually assaulted every 2 minutes, 97% of rapists will never spend a day in jail and there are an estimated 5,000 honour killings internationally per year.

So while discussing gender based violence is an essential endeavour in ending it major online publishers need to maintain this dialogue because as tragic, horrifying and reprehensible as this massacre was it was one instance in an hourly, global epidemic.

And it seems ironic that once again for attention to be called to an international phenomenon it takes a white, middle to upper class man to do it, in the most deranged way he could imagine. All the while organisations of both women and men such as The Joyful Heart Foundation, The Representation Project, Ms. Magazine, Jezebel, RAINN, The Everyday Sexism Project and countless others have been vying for this kind of media coverage on gender based violence for years.

We, as a species, are supremely susceptible to suggestion. It is how the most heinous war crimes are committed, how genocide is justified and how prejudice and discrimination thrive. I have spoken before of the devastating effects of dehumanisation and of the ‘us’ and ‘them’ dynamic. Where, in the Western world, religion and politics once dictated social attitudes the media is now our president, our lord and our moral compass.

It’s as if in the last 7 days since the killings the world has suddenly realised that misogyny still exists, in every race, class and age group. Only instead of such men thinking, ‘Women should be homemakers and child bearers’ they are thinking, ‘Women should accept my sexual advances without question.’ How utterly devastating it is however that since asking in my last post – When will it be enough? I have in a way received my answer. A mass murder incited by sexist hatred is what it took when any given day we can find news reports of women being stoned to death for no reason.

Mind-boggling doesn’t even cover it.

Every meaningless loss of life is equally tragic but every meaningless loss of life does not receive the same press coverage.

All we can do is hope that this discourse does lead to social change but unfortunately I fear that the media, the kingpin of culture, will still go unnamed, unmarred and unblamed.

Katherine Breann Cooper

Veronika Elizabeth Weiss

Cheng Yuan Hong

Weihan Wang

George Chen

Christopher Ross Michaels-Martinez

To learn more on any of the topics raised in this article, here are but a few interesting resources:

Joyful Heart Foundation

The Representation Project

National Council of Women Ireland

The Everyday Sexism Project

Honor Based Violence Awareness Network

Rape Crisis Network Ireland

Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network

Day 100 – Without a Voice

It does not feel like 100 days have passed but if I look at what’s been achieved in that time it begins to sink in.

We have raised €700 that has been spent on paint, canvases and a daylight lightbulb which allows me to work well into the wee hours, I have the bones of 8 paintings done while the other 17 canvases hang around my walls baring the pencil-sketched faces I now live with and our small but significant efforts have been recognised by people such as Carol Morely, director of Dreams of a Life.

Since beginning Blink. I’ve been asking myself night after night: Why women? There are just as many if not more John Does out there so why is it that I focused solely on the women. I’m female – that’s one feeble excuse. I’m a feminist – but yet this isn’t a feminist issue. And as I questioned myself tirelessly trying to invent an answer if one did not inherently exist I thought perhaps I should not voice my concern and hope no one else noticed either.

Then, as I spent a dismal night painting and watching a documentary which I can no longer remember the details of I had an epiphany. It was a historical film set around the protesting against the Vietnam War in the 1960’s and one of the leading members of the movement had been asked how he got involved.

He replied: Well, you know, it’s like all things. I met a girl.

Suddenly, as if the haze of vanilla scented candles and distant sounds of cars scuttling through puddles ceased to exist, there it was – the reason why Blink. had to be about women. The faces that paper my walls as I write are the embodiment of the nameless woman but they are not the only ones.

On Time Magazine’s list of 100 most influential figures throughout history only 3 women grace the well prepared list. 2 were queens and therefore, had a better chance than most. But how many women in history have stood behind men, in the shadows and held them strong as they etched their names into the history books. They are the ones who are remembered, written about and exalted. Meanwhile, we will never know the names of the women who bore them upright, women throughout time who may have had more to say than their male counterparts but were simply never given the opportunity to explore their own vision as cognitive, unique, important human beings. How many potentially brilliant minds have been lost between the lines of historical texts. For centuries, half the population were considered sub-standard. They simply weren’t worth the time. In a way, I like to think the women of Blink. both stand for themselves but also represent the countless generations of voiceless women.

We have come so far and yet it’s disheartening how much is left to do. As of 2014, political representation for women is still far less than perfect in the US, UK and indeed, Ireland.

The simple logistical fact is that as long as 50% of the entire population is underrepresented in the country’s decision making – the wrong decisions are going to be made. As long as women don’t think that their voice matters, they will never fight to be heard. This isn’t some ‘feminazi propaganda’ as many would have you believe, it’s simple psychology.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union website has the largest grid for outlining female distribution among the world’s governments.

Rwanda are world leaders in female political representation holding 51% of the seats across the lower and upper house. In third is the much maligned Cuba with 48.9%. Who else puts the “progressive” US, UK and Ireland to shame. Here’s to mention but a few: South Africa, Mexico, Argentina, Uganda, Serbia, Guyana, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Singapore, China and Iraq. The UK rank 65th with 23% of seats held by women and the US 84th with 19%. In the meantime more countries pop up ahead of Ireland like Israel, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Ireland places 92nd with only 15.6% female representation.*

Hearing such statistics makes you want to bow your head and avert your eyes and ask how we ever fooled ourselves so much. The only female voices we hear are Nicky Minaj, Megan Fox and Kim Kardashian. Yes, feminism is about choice and if you choose to utilise your sexuality to achieve your ambitions who am I to judge? But this doesn’t mean we should not question and consider the motives behind these choices.

If we are so autonomous, so empowered why are so many of us still striving for the same goal of the sexual ideal? While young men are pressured to become economically successful women are just as influenced to strive for cosmetic success. If we say we are just as capable as men then why are we the backing dancers to a male government? Surely when a large percentage of us are making similar if not the same decisions we can’t call ourselves independent thinkers.

If I’m sounding judgmental that is certainly not my intention. I’m just genuinely confused because I succumb to the same pressures the vast majority of young women do. I’m still trying to find the perfect way to remove hair from their follicles, I have been of the mind that if you can’t wear a bikini there’s not much point going to the beach, I still search for the ideal foundation that is heavy duty but doesn’t sit in the natural pores of my face and I religiously subject my hair to chemicals whose names I could not dream of pronouncing.

Again, I cannot express enough how this is not the common man’s fault, they are as conditioned as we are.

But I’m just a young woman, balancing precariously somewhere between apathy and fury all the while trying to convince myself I’m not insane for feeling this way. You just have to ask when is this going to end? The Women’s Movement never declared themselves finished and yet we all presume Feminism is a thing that happened not something that is still happening and perhaps more than ever needs to revitalised.

It has been living on the respirator for far too long.

*Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union

Think Consent

These 25 case files are perforated with gaping holes. Many are still open homicides and thus law enforcement are careful to keep important details such as cause of death from the public eye. But if you’ve read them as often as I have some things become increasingly obvious. 11 of the women were found either without pants or completely unclothed (and a startling number still had their socks.) This means that in all likelihood at least 44% of the cases I’m working on were violent sex crimes and this is excluding the killers that bothered to reclothe their victims.

The psychology and cultural influences behind rape and sexual assault have long been a source of both fascination and disgust for me. After watching documentaries such as The Invisible War I felt the need to discuss the issue because unlike topics such as female role models and lack of political representation for women the growing problem of sexual violence seems to be slipping deeper and deeper from public discussion.

Feminism is most certainly a fashionable topic among twenty-something students today and so it should be. I give credit to my elder and much wiser sister for introducing me to Miss Representation which since seeing over 2 years ago I have been a proud and card carrying feminist. But it seems there is still much work to do on the world’s stage.

The universal popularity of feminism can certainly still be called into question. 2013 was undoubtedly a year for feminist discourse – between Robin Thicke’s undeniably catchy date rape anthem and Miley Cyrus’ latex twerking debacle. Discussion is great but the fact that we still have to argue whether a club crowd of 400 + chanting lines like ‘I know you want it’ and ‘the way you grab me/ must wanna get nasty’ has an influence on both men and women is frankly quite insane. And Thicke was just the only one brazen enough to combine explicitly derogatory and dangerous lyrics with a jingle so memorable that it became a summer sensation. Music like this is everywhere.

The trouble is that it’s not just music. It’s been estimated that adolescents are exposed to various media sources for over 10 hours each day. This means that while girls are listening to these diminishing lyrics they may be flicking through a magazine where they are told page after page, ad after ad that they should be striving to attain an inhuman epitome of beauty and that working hard and becoming self-fulfilled just isn’t enough. They take time to watch tv instead and inevitably flick to E! while presenters question whether the latest starlet is pregnant (or maybe she just had white carbs for lunch) while at the same time deplore an actress for being too thin and sending a bad message. And if they want to shop online, ASOS is there to tell them via their ‘size guide’ that their measurements should look something like a 36″ bust, 25″ waist and 36″ hips – the perfect hourglass.

Meanwhile, teenage boys are learning from various porn sites that it is simply not natural for there to be one strand of hair anywhere on a woman’s body besides her head and above her eyes. They also learn here that to be a man is throw your woman down and give absolute reign to your primal instincts – and she’ll appreciate this every single time.

This is 10 hours a day, 365 days a year and yet we still have to ask ourselves how much influence media has on both ourselves and the younger generation. The time when parents and teachers were 100% responsible for adolescents moral compass is long gone. Today, the media parents both us and our children.

The term objectification has been overused – are women seen as sex objects in the media? Undoubtedly. But more importantly they are dehumanised. Men are taught to value women only for their sexual attributes and women respond in valuing themselves this way too. The harsh reality is things are just not getting better. If you go on to IMDB, the largest public voting database for movies and televesion, among the top 20 tv shows of all time only 2 feature a female lead and these don’t even count because they’re ensemble casts. Meanwhile among the top 50 movies only 3 have a female lead. The most recent of these 3? 1994. So for over twenty years a movie lead by a female has not merited being included in the top 50.

Dehumanisation has occurred often throughout history – it’s how dictators incite genocide and how racial and religious hatred is maintained. The scary fact is that in these cases violence was dependent on the sense of there being an ‘other’ not like us but here not only are men, under the deep impression of media influence, dehumanising women but women and girls are dehumanising themselves. Instead of teen media promoting figures like Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey or Wendy Davis the female ideal is a hyper-sexualised cookie cutter image of “empowerment.” Men don’t need to rely on their sexuality to be seen as powerful so why should women?

The relevance to sex crimes? What is your immediate reaction when you hear the word ‘rapist’? Most men and women (including myself) picture a dark alley, a man in a trench coat wearing a ski mask. Or some variation. But in reality the Rape Crisis Network of Ireland reported in 2011 that 90% of perpetrators of sexual violence are known to the survivor. The even bigger problem is that a huge proportion of these men don’t think of themselves as rapists because of the simple fact that we are not teaching men and women what constitutes sexual assault. More often than not rape doesn’t necessarily involve a brutal struggle and it doesn’t have the obvious signs but not saying no does not mean yes.

We have national television adverts and school sessions dedicated to ‘Think Contraception.’ Where is the ‘Think Consent’ campaign? Does it really kill the mood that much to simply utter the words: “Do you want to do this?” 6 simple words. Unfortunately, not only is preventing rape the issue but when a survivor has the strength to come forward she is often revictimised by the judicial system. And before even coming forward she may google some things to research what she has experienced:

It is possible that sexual assault is one of the only crimes where the victim is essentially put on trial. The bruises? She liked it rough. She flirted/danced/ kissed me. She passed out? Well she shouldn’t have drank so much, worn that dress, she was asking for it. Victim shaming is possibly the most repugnant part of the crime itself. If you leave your door unlocked accidentally and are burgled will you be asked: Did you want that to happen? If you get drunk, pass out and wake up to find someone has stolen your bag: But you really wanted that right? And if someone leaves their DNA on you this is suddenly a different matter.

As long as we keep blaming the survivors we are both letting the perpetrators know that they can get away with it and simultaneously telling victims that their word and forensic evidence simply isn’t good enough.

Hence, the vicious circle is complete. The media conditions both men and women into accepting rape culture and when the crime is committed we are more likely to question the victim rather than the assailant. Sexual assault is both underreported and even when it is prosecution is extremely difficult. This isn’t a woman’s problem, it is a human problem. As long as one half of the population is underrepresented be it in politics or the media we will never receive a balanced view of the world. Media conglomerates simply have to be held accountable for their insidious and blatantly dangerous impact on the population as a whole because as much as we like to think of ourselves as being autonomous we are simply the sum of what we’re exposed to.

Join the cause at http://nomore.org/

Day 53 – Lost Threads

I’ve found it difficult to write as of late and I explained that this can largely be attributed to my inability to put myself out there. I’ve also spoken of the importance yet striking frailty of the connections we make throughout our lives. And again with the startling and heart-breaking documentary Dreams of a Life in mind I wonder who would be the first to notice my absence?

For any of you who don’t know the film, Joyce Carol Vincent was a woman who at the age of 38 died in her London bedsit and lay there undiscovered for over three years. Director Carol Morley subsequently tried to piece together Joyce’s life through her friends and people she had known. According to all that knew her she was sociable, full of life and even met people such as Nelson Mandela and Stevie Wonder. The story of Joyce’s life and death has haunted me for well over a year now since I saw the documentary and I know of many others who were affected thus.

After watching such a film you immediately want to reach out to those closest to you, just to check in.

The women who are a part of Blink. don’t even have those to speak up for them, they don’t have the voices that keep them alive through telling stories, reliving memories, paying tribute to them. This, surely, is the least we can ask for in death? And who would check in with you? I can rattle off a list and I’m sure you could too because in this golden age of technology and instant communication we think, we assume, that we are so safe, so acknowledged, so connected.

But connection is a double thread and if one end breaks how long will it take for the other end to feel the effect? For most of us these threads, sometimes the ones we think most solid, are stretched miles, oceans wide through the complexity of the ether and this is undoubtedly an essential part of maintaining these connections in modern times. I’m not a life coach, I can barely manage myself but it seems logical that every now and again, more often than we think necessary, our threads need to be serviced. We must reign them in so that a key pad, an iphone or a camera is no longer the catalyst for communication.

This, as all things, is easier said then done but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. We’ve all seen in one form or another how distance, how lack of face to face contact can be as sharp as a blade to any relationship as an argument or a betrayal. But there are those relationships, usually with family, or partners or very close friends that can withstand this test and even if the people don’t stay constant the relationship does.

However, take stock, real brutal stock because these exist in the handful, not the dozen. Who would you want to be the first to ask of you’re whereabouts? Who do you know that undoubtedly thinks of you on a daily basis even for a fleeting moment? And how many people would know the thread has been cut before the effect reaches them?

Women like those in Blink. and Joyce Carol Vincent fell through the cracks that we like to pretend only exist for weird people, the “others,” those who are not like us. But I’m sure each and every one of them did not foresee this as their legacy, did not think this would be the result of their life and many may have rattled off the list just like you and I. These people are not the other, this isn’t a result of them doing something wrong, it is the result of these cracks in our collective life that we assume we are impervious to. We’re not and these fractures aren’t small, they’re craters.

Day 34 – Connections

I have to recognise the recent infrequency in posting but the details are not too interesting and more importantly quite boring.There is little less than a month left on Fundit http://fundit.ie/project/blink and still 85% to raise so don’t wait, it takes less than 2 minutes. I’m currently working on a Blink. inspired painting that I hope to share in the next 24 hours but today I feel the need to approach one of the central themes of the project – Connections.

I often wonder how many people the average person speaks to in their entire life. There’s no way of knowing and yet it must be somewhere in the many thousands. Your mother, your partner, the woman behind the deli, the bouncer on the door, your children, the people interviewing you for a job, your doctors in the final days. It’s endless. And how many people do these people talk to?

Isn’t it possible that every last one of us is in some distant way connected to any and all of the Jane Does across the world? Less possible, more probable. How many names do we learn in a lifetime? This number is significantly less. And further, How many names do we remember on our deathbed?

Every one of these women was somebody’s daughter, sister, aunt, friend, waitress, maid, patient, boss, partner. Some were even wives and mothers. Somewhere along the way these seemingly significant connections were severed or at least ignored.

So how do we decide which connections are worth strengthening? Every single relationship starts as a thread in a web, a word, an introduction, but when do we cast these threads in silver, gold, iron and steel? We choose to do this. We choose who enriches our life moments. Blood is liquid and genes are microscopic but those people we decide to cherish beyond all else upon a chance encounter in one moment – this is the real miracle of life. No religion, no destiny, no fate just the miracle of coincidence.

These women once had these connections and maybe some were made of heavier stuff than thread but they still somehow disintegrated. Nothing is unbreakable and death is the greatest hammer. We may never be able to forge the truly permanent connection but it is our choice of who we decide to spend the strengthening moments with that makes all the difference.

I’d like to dedicate this post to my dearest friend whose infinite ability to be my complete opposite has furnished me with some of my happiest memories and who I hope to spend countless life moments with to strengthen our relationship even more.

Day 13/14/15 – Surrender

Of course painting is the mission here so that’s what I’ve been concentrating on over the last few days. And now, considering the lack of visual stimulation thus far here I’ve decided to take a small intermission from Blink. to share with you all the painting that really helped me come to this point.

It’s strange how television that isn’t even on the critical level of, let’s say, Breaking Bad or The Wire can inspire something powerful from a place of crippling fragility and insecurity. Around December I began binge watching Law & Order: SVU as I became bed bound for around six weeks and Mariska Hargitay as Det. Olivia Benson reignited a resilience and strength I was all but sure no longer existed in me. This character is perhaps one of the only truly independent, autonomous females in television. She is neither the ball-busting man hater nor the wilting violet waiting to be rescued. She is a fine example of what it is to be a true woman and unfortunately, this breed is rare on our screens.

In reality, Hargitay is no less inspiring. She created the Joyful Heart Foundation, an organisation which advocates for victims of domestic and sexual abuse along with campaigning to reduce, if not end, this kind of violence and works with End The Backlog which aims to eradicate the terrifying number of untested rape kits across the US.

Her earth-splitting beauty was secondary to me, though impossible to ignore. Therefore when I decided I had to paint a portrait of her, instead of choosing a glamourous shot of her looking the conventional idea of beautiful I decided to take a still from the opening episode of SVU Season 15. Here, she has been kidnapped and tortured for four days by a serial rapist referred to as “The Beast.” In the still I chose she has just broken free of her restraints and incapacitated her assailant.

This, for me, was Hargitay at her most beautiful. She was raw, burnt, beaten and fatigued but her face, her eyes, her mouth emanated such intense yet subdued power, a power that stemmed from the most vulnerable of situations that in a way I was a little awe-struck.

It’s the longest I’ve ever spent on a painting, just a little over four weeks of 10 hour days (I have no idea where that time went) but I came out of it with a new perspective on art, beauty and myself. It’s an extremely personal piece that will forever hold a part of my life and as dramatic as it sounds, I’m not sure exactly where I’d be without it.