"Women in Black" harassed in Lawrence, KS.

[madfloridian]

http://www.blogforamerica.com/archives/005329.html
Long Day In Lawrence
Lauretta Hendricks Backus is a staunch Dean supporter and a member of the Women In Black anti-war organization.

I am involved with a group in Lawrence, Kansas called "Women in Black." Weekly, we have stood silently as a group wearing black clothing and veils, holding signs with the current death toll of both Iraqis and American service people in the Iraq war.

Last Saturday we wanted to put our message out to a larger group of people. We decided that tailgate parties before football games would provide the best bang for the buck. Held in the parking lot before games, they can attract thousands of people.

Wearing our black garb and carrying our "Bush lies, 1000's Die" and "1157 US dead, 15,000+ Iraqi Dead" signs, we slowly and silently walked through the crowd. It was the most frightening experience of my life. Screaming angry people yelled obscenities at us and called us traitors.

For 40 minutes we walked through the most hostile environment I have ever been in. I actually feared for my life at times. I thought to myself, "if just one person throws a stone at us, a riot would ensue and we would be killed." Was this what it was like for the children trying to go to school in Little Rock, Arkansas in the late 50's?..................

SNIP..."Out of thousands of people, only three offered encouragement. One women walked beside me and said, "you're so brave, thanks for doing this." I didn't feel brave. An African-American man took his hat off as we walked past, and said, "thank you ladies for doing this." Then another many screamed obscenities at us. The kind black man held him back and said something like, "I'm a Veteran. You don't know about war, man. These people are trying to help us." He continued to talk the guy down as we walked on. He was my hero............

SNIP..."One of the most shocking things about this incident was the hostility shown toward us as women - countless sexual threats, and vulgar references to our anatomy. There were even some women out there yelling out at us, although most just watched. One elderly blue haired lady give me the finger.

Looking back, I can't help but think that if this is George Bush's America, he can have it. I'm going to keep working on my own America.

—Lauretta Hendricks Backus
Women In Black
http://www.womeninblack.net/

[Downtown Hound]

1. Gotta love those red states

[Kanary]

2. "countless sexual threats, and vulgar references to our anatomy."

Can easily find that, right here at DU.

Some things are the same all over.

After all these years........

Kanary

[Eloriel]

8. And it's goddamned time to fix that too

WHEN WOMEN ARE TREATED WITH THAT KIND OF DISRESPECT, BECAUSE THEY ARE WOMEN -- especially when their sexuality is vulgarized and part and the vehicle of woman-hating disrespect -- IT NORMALIZES AND VALIDATES THE SEXISM AND MISOGYNY.

DUers do exactly that -- normalize and validate sexism as "okay," every time you call ANY woman (including rightwing women) "bitch," "whore," and worse you make it easier for the rightwing to villify and threaten leftwing women when you do that.

Those DUers who don't seem to (forget that -- who don't WANT to) "get it" about their own goddamned sexism need to take note: YOU aid and abet exactly the threatening and intimidating and vulgarly sexualized kind of treatment these courageous women endured. Not much different from what might go on under the Taliban. Of course, it's all too possible there are those among you who don't think there's was nything wrong with what happened here.

Edited to add: Not only do you normalize and validate that kind of treatment of women when YOU engage in it here or anywhere, you also cede the moral high ground. There is NO WAY that any of you who engage in this kind of behavior on DU, or any one else on the Left for that matter, can OBJECT to leftwing women being treated thusly because YOU DO IT YOURSELVES re Ann Coulter, Judy Woodruff, Candy Crowley, and any other rightwing female pundit or biased female newsperson who displeases you. IT'S GOT TO STOP. YOU ARE HURTING US AND HELPING THEM FURTHER ERODE OUR RIGHTS -- and sooner or later there'll be a woman or girl you love dearly who is negatively affected by it -- your girlfriend or wife, your mother or aunt, your daughter or niece.

And women DUers who find "nothing wrong" with vulgar epithets hurled at rightwing women we don't agree with or like, wake the fuck up and get with the program. YOU TOO are part of the problem when you do NOT challenge and confront sexism wherever you see it.

[tridim]

3. Lots of Johnson County repukes go to KU games

Who was KU playing that day? Maybe some of the hostility was from out of town.

[pstokely]

6. they were playing Kstate

nt

[friesianrider]

4. Typical...

In a red state.

Keep up the good work. I'd bet there were people there who wanted to say something in support but were rightly afraid to speak up. It's a tough job, but if we don't do it, who will?

Keep your head up, and don't ever give up. We're with you!

[atommom]

5. Sad to say, in any other town in Kansas their reception would have been

even worse! Lawrence is probably the most liberal town in the state. :(

[Blue_Tires]

7. KU grad here (went for grad school)

and I should say that while the student body and city in general are VERY liberal, the older and more affluent alumni base (which attended a VERY different KU in their time) are usually not...Most are Johnson Co./Shawnee Mission suburbanites that are part of that 'i got mine already' crowd...

Not to mention the number of KSU (aka state school for tractor driving) alums and students that were probably around which is a much more of a RW bloc...