Rosario Dawson Calls Obama Vagina Friendly

It's true, she did... and he most certainly is. We heart the president who has created an office overseeing the health of women and girls and marks April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Last week I attended the first ever: Women & Men as Allies: National Conferenc eon the Primary Prevention of Men’s Violence Against Women in Washington D.C. The conference took place on Capital Hill across the street from a hotel named “Liaison”. Well, well, well.

Basically the idea is this: men’s violence against women (and children and men) is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men --- so this is not a “women’s issue” this is a men’s issue. MCSR has been working for a decade to challenge stereotypes of masculinity and gender (although a lot of the material for messaging sake is in a gender-binary format, which makes sense to me in this context). It was exciting to see so many military personnel at the conference, as MCSR has just signed a contract with the Department of Defense.

Other long standing allies in the movement are Jackson Katz, creator of the MVP: Mentors in Violence Prevention program at Northeastern University, and two of the men in my film: Brett Sokolow and Don McPherson. Of course Byron Hurt, the director of “Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes” is a highly visible member of this community and a great speaker, keynoted.

Opening keynote discussion with Byron Hurt and Ritu Sharma was powerful. Ritu Sharma is the Executive Director of Women Thrive Worldwide, and she is a woman who truly speaks truth to power. She was born in India and at the age of 4 raped by her grandfather. She feels fortunate that her family got out of their village and moved to America, but she highlighted the global realities of so many women in children in the world. She “got out” but others live continually with their perpetrators, family members, husbands, and have no laws or cultural norms to protect them.

Byron Hurt made the great point about being a man in the movement, you have to be careful to check yourself, stay “real” because you get so much love just for showing up as a man doing this work, that you must keep your ego in check. How many rounds of applause can a group of 30 guys get and not let it go to their heads?

First panel: Research on Forced Sex in Intimate relationships: Continuum of Coercion and Relationships.
This was interesting because it talked about “forced sex” and how changing the language can invite more people who may run from “the r word” and be more willing and able to look at the consequences and context of their sexual encounters. This does not fall under “domestic violence” or “dating violence” this can be more casual… which is right where my work falls… the hook up gone wrong.

I asked a question really trying to highlight, detail and identify “the line of consent” (which of course is always moving around, depends on context, is not set in stone) and that sparked a nice debate in the audience and connected me with likeminded folks.

Otherwise, we skirted the topic and discussed a ton of public health statistics.
A recent uproar is the notion that Hamid Karzai legalized rape in marriage in Afjghanistan. The world is an uproar, right? Well… the irony of legalizing rape in marriage, is that IT IS LEGAL in the overwhelming majority of the world! It is legal in over 70% of the world. One great solution we can do in the US/Canada is put the legality issues into ESL classes, New Immigrant centers – to make sure newer members of our communities/nations know that in the US it is absolutely not legal to rape or beat your wife.

Congresswoman Donna F. Edwards was our keynote at lunch. She has been a longstanding ally at the Office of Violence Against Women and was late due to a hot date with Obama and his economic plan speech. Highlights were sitting next to some really engaged young men.

Post lunch session: “The Complexity of Consent” it was a TOTAL BOMB
Semantic eruptions between Second Wave and Third Wave feminists/allies about how to talk about rape… “rape is not (only) about power and control, it is also about sexuality”, “rape IS about power and control, only” No one listening to each other, and no one really talked about the complexity of consent using interesting or nuanced hypothetical information. Yes, if you’ve passed out on heroin, you are not consenting. That’s pretty clear… but otherwise, why don’t we waste an hour shouting at each other?

Mid-day Celebrity spotting: Rosario Dawson keynote – great speech where she was asked to channel Eve Ensler who was in France. Rosario noted that Obama is Vagina Friendly, and showed up in the Washington Post the next day.

NEWSFLASH: Want to get men interested in combating violence against women? Have Rosario Dawson show up, look hot, and commend them for their great work! You should have seen the boys sitting in the front row. Adoration.
http://www.ihatethemedia.com/rosario-dawson-calls-obama-vagina-friendly

Day #2 to come...