Women Body and Soul

“The way you saw the earth shake, that’s how our bodies are shaking now,” says a Haitian woman activist, speaking about sexual assault and violence against women and children in Haiti since the earthquake January 12, 2010. We’ll discuss the safety of women and girls, reports that aid is not reaching the people of Haiti, and that the process for rebuilding Haiti politically, economically, socially and physically, has excluded women.

Guests: Marie St. Cyr, Haitian human rights advocate, Board Member of MADRE and  Lambi Fund of Haiti. Beverly Bell author of the book Walking on Fire: Haitian Women’s Stories of Survival and Resistance and Nicole Phillips, staff attorney of Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti

We’ll look at child sexual abuse and examine why so many people defend the perpetrators while blaming victims when they’re girls.  We will examine how this double standard impacts African American girls in particular.  We’ll also explore how we can end the language that grooms consenting bystanders and victims, and how we can end child sex abuse.

Guests: Deborah Donovan Rice, Executive Director, www.stopitnow.org

Stop It Now!® a sexual abuse prevention organization, providing resources for adults to take responsibility for creating safer communities.  Ted Bunch,  Co-Founder – A CALL TO MEN an organization committed to ending violence and discrimination against women and girls.

Correspondent Gina McCauley, of What About Our Daughters.com, gives us a Free Black Woman’s take on a culture that defends violent criminals and throws their women and girl targets under the bus as collateral damage.

RAPE as A WEAPON of WAR radio interview with Amnesty International spokesperson Mila Rosenthal, and film maker Lisa F. Jackson, Director: The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo with host Nathalie Thandiwe.

• In times of peace women fear the possibility of rape; in times of conflict rape is inevitable.  Women and children’s bodies are the 2nd battleground, raped by men–both soldiers and civilians, enemy and neighbor, as “spoils of war”.
• How can we stop the global epidemic of war-rape tragedies like the Congo? How do survivors heal?  Can perpetrators heal from being rapists/sex offenders?  What does their impact and presence mean for their post-war communities?

•Support the International Violence against Women Act
•Support Panzi Hospital, the Congo’s pre-eminent treatment center for rape survivors

RAPE in the U.S. MILITARY radio interview with Helen Benedict, author of The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq and Reverend Dorothy Mackey of Survivors Take Action Against Abuse by Military Personnel, with host Nathalie Thandiwe.

• U.S. Women Soldiers face battle on two fronts–the enemy on the frontlines and the enemy within the military.  Increasingly, women soldiers in Iraq and on other fronts report deep-seated hostility, widespread sexual harassment and assault from their fellow male soldiers.
• 30% of women veterans surveyed reported being raped in the military, in a study of Vietnam-Gulf War enlistees
• 90% of women veterans surveyed reported being sexually harassed, in a study of those enlisted between the Gulf war and earlier wars.

What recourse do U.S. female soldiers have and what happens to both targets and perpetrators of sexual violence after these crimes?

Additional Resources:
• Military Rape Crisis Center: www.stopmilitaryrape.org
• S.W.A.N. Service Women Action Network: www.servicewomen.org
• Military Families Speak Out: www.mfso.org

Even when I was MAD at Michael, I knew his craziness was America’s craziness.  The abuse we endure as children, the abuse we perpetuate as survivors, our irrational reactions to the irrational racism, our unlimited talent, our unlimited pathos, our Stockholm Syndrome, the Pecola Breedlove in everyone of us who is assaulted by the oppressors’ beauty myths every millisecond, from the womb.  We know you Michael. Rest.In.Peace.

The Fatherless Daughter radio interview with guest Jonetta Rose Barras, Whatever Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl? author, columnist and DC Politics radio host (WPFW, Tuesdays @ 11 am) Jonetta Rose Barras speaks about the Impact of Fatherlessness.
• What happens to girls who grow up without their father?
• How does it shape their growth, life choices and relationships?
• For those who mourn or rage at this loss, where is the healing?

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Reinventing Dad radio interview with guests Professor Mark Anthony Neal, father and author of New Black Man, along with hip hop musician, educator and father, Bomani Armah (Peek-a-Boo, Read a Book, Grown Ass Man), discuss how men and families can benefit from the reinvention of fatherhood.
• How does our concept of masculinity inform fatherhood and how does it confine fathers?
• What role is there for fathers who cannot provide materially for their children/ families?
• How does feminism fit into fatherhood?

Book Giveaway Info Below!
Becoming Dad:
Pulitzer prize winning journalist Leonard Pitts Jr., author of Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood, explores black men’s relationships with their fathers and how it impacts their parenting. Using intimate interviews, research and his own experiences, Mr.Pitts considers how men learn to be fathers, the importance of fathers, the reasons men struggle with this role, and culls lessons learned and guidance of value for all fathers.
Mr.Pitts will speaks at the Chicago Tribune Printers Row Lit Fest Sat. June 6 at 11 am

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Real Dads Stand Up! What Every Single Father Should Know About Child Support, Rights & Custody
As the number of children living without their fathers increases, dads are saying it’s not their fault, it’s…their ex’s fault…

According to Attorney Alicia Crowe, Real Dads accept their parental responsibilities and use mediation and the law to protect their parental rights. Ms.Crowe has represented parents in family court for over a decade and “created this book as a way to inform, inspire, empower, and challenge fathers to step up to the plate and become active, responsible, and nurturing adults in their children’s lives.”

Check out Ms.Crowe’s upcoming appearances

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ENTER LISTENER GIVEAWAY for 1 of the following:
•a copy of Becoming Dad by Leonard Pitts Jr.
•a copy of Before I Forget (fiction novel) by Leonard Pitts Jr.
•a copy of Real Dads Stand Up! by Alicia M. Crowe
•an XL Real Dads T-shirt (black w/white lettering)

TO ENTER GIVEAWAY: Leave a comment on the show and an email letting us know which items you are interested in!

The Book, Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power (Routledge 2008), with editor Shira Tarrant, PhD and contributing authors Jacob Anderson-Minshall, Byron Hurt, and Jeremy Adam Smith.

To enter the book giveaway for a free copy of Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power email hidden; JavaScript is required">please send us an email.

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Globally, at least one in three women and girls is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime; according to statistics, their perpetrators are most likely men.  Women are increasingly turning to self defense in response to the risk of being assaulted.  Men can also be part of the solution through violence prevention.

Guests: Donna Chait of the Prepare Inc. personal safety program and Ted Bunch of A Call to Men, a national organization engaging men in ending men’s violence against women and the eradication of sexism.

Guest Joycelyn Campbell of Domestic Workers United (DWU). DWU consists of Caribbean, Latina and African nannies, housekeepers, and elderly caregivers in NY, organizing for fair labor standards. Women in largely unregulated domestic labor ranging from paid household workers to those experiencing slavery with no pay and violence, are among the most vulnerable segment of our economy.

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The financial crisis of the “GREAT RECESSION”  is especially threatening for women, who bear the brunt of poverty worldwide and in times of widespread economic hardship fare even worse than usual. With lower incomes and savings than men, women are most vulnerable to homelessness and unemployment.  Families headed by single women, particularly if they are black or Latino, are the poorest.  14 million U.S. women live in poverty — one in 8.

Our guests represent nonprofit debt management and financial counseling organizations and will address commonplace financial problems such as facing foreclosure, being upside down on a car note and having credit card debt and student loans we are unable to pay off.