Somaly Mam's resignation from the Somaly Mam Foundation and why it matters

Somaly Mam recently resigned from the Somaly Mam Foundation, a non-profit that rehabilitates girls and women in Cambodia who have escaped from human trafficking, following affirmations that her personal experiences being trafficked, her memoir, and the stories of many young women who claim to have been rescued from human trafficking by her foundation were fabricated.

Many responses I have seen have been in support of Mam and her work. "I don't care what she's done in the past and I don't care that she lied, she's doing good work now and that's all that matters."

Most people fail to realize when fabrications about experiences like this are discovered, they cast doubt on all other survivors who are trying to tell their stories. These lies lead people to believe even more that survivors sharing their trauma are doing it for attention, publicity, or profit. The inflated number of false accusations in sex crimes is a pervasive myth that is thrown at all survivors who come forward, and stories like this only further that myth.

I have not seen any statements from Somaly Mam apologizing to the young women she pressured into lying for the sake of pulling in donations for her foundation. She should apologize to them and to survivors who are currently attempting to recover and overcome stigma in order to share their truths despite being surrounded by a culture of doubt that will attempt to silence and shame them.

What she did was absolutely not okay. Her significant accomplishments in rescuing and rehabilitating survivors of sex trafficking should not be used to excuse her actions. Her foundation, Half the Sky, and other projects she has had a part in will be tainted by this lie. We were fooled, but her actions should not be disregarded or defended.

I watched Artemisia (1997) and was very disappointed.

Spring semester of 2014 I took an online class called Introduction to Art Education for Non-Majors at the University of North Texas. An extra credit opportunity was offered at the end of the semester. The professor gave us a list of several films; we were supposed to watch one and write a review of it while answering questions about what we learned about art history, the political climate in time period depicted, and if we would recommend the film to someone hoping to learn more about art. I picked the 1997 film Artemisia.

The topics covered in class were interesting, but we spent very little time (zero, if I remember correctly) covering women artists, so I took this as an opportunity to learn something about a well-known woman painter in an era where very few woman painters were allowed to rise to prominence.

I knew very little about Artemisia the artist, only that she was a famous classical painter in a time period where there were few woman classical painters. In hindsight, it was foolish of me to expect a film made for entertainment to be educational and remain loyal to the historical accuracies of Artemisia's legacy, but I was absolutely not prepared for the incredible disappointment I had to endure for an hour and a half that morning.

The movie was absolutely demeaning and degrading to Artemisia's legacy. There are a wealth of criticisms to be found online (even some by Gloria Steinem), but in all my reaching for comprehensive reviews, I found very few focused on the film itself.

I spent an angry afternoon at my coffee table formulating my essay. I decided to toss it here in order to aid anyone searching for a comprehensive and critical review of the film through a feminist lens. I am not an art history major, just someone passionate about the representation of women in the media and the dignity of well-known women in our history.

If anyone was curious, my TA gave me 60/60 points.

Artemisia

            I chose to analyze the 1997 film Artemisia for this assignment. It is a French film that was distributed widely in France, Germany, Italy, and later in the United States. The film was promoted as "The Untold True Story of an Extraordinary Woman" in the United States, which earned it a fair amount of controversy. I chose this film with the expectation that I would learn about the trials and tribulations of a female artist in 17th century Rome. It did not add to my understand about the theory and technique of art as much as it did the climate surrounding female artists in the time period and the political and religious influence on artists and the works they create. Connections to the church were very important at that time in Rome, and the church could commission a piece or even switch out an artist for a piece at any time. Women painters faced many barriers, including being denied from painting academies due to their sex rather than their talent and being forbidden by papal authority to paint nude males, which was a very important figure in art during the time period. 

            The film follows Artemisia, one of the few famous woman painters of the time period, through her struggle to be taken seriously as an artist, join an art academy, secure mentorship, and later through her rape trial that unfortunately became just as well-known as her paintings. In the film Artemisia is depicted as a small, naïve young girl who learns to draw by looking at herself nude in a mirror while in bed at school. She later is taken out of her religious school, which is seen as an impediment to her artistic growth, and learns to paint under the wing of her father. She serves as a model for some famous works of art and lends a helping hand to some of her father’s commissions. When famous Florentine painter Agostino Tassi comes into town, she asks to be taken in as his pupil, and after be convinced by her father, he agrees. This is where a significant shift in the film takes place. Tassi rapes Artemisia, the two have consensual sex afterwards, and then Artemisia’s father discovers them and puts Tassi on trial for rape. 

The films depictions of these events are deeply disturbing. It frames the rape as an act of love on Tassi’s part, and the love affair that blossoms after leads Artemisia to try and protect Tassi at her imminent rape trial, which historically is not what is known to have happened (Cohen). It was an immensely unnecessary change that is malignant to the legacy of Artemisia and wholly deceptive of the true injustices committed by Tassi. 

Focusing on how the film depicts Artemisia alone, although Artemisia’s self-portraits are of a larger woman, the actress chosen to play her is a skinny, conventionally beautiful girl. She is written as a naïve, petulant child prone to temper tantrums and off-color outbursts. In the film, Artemisia and her father take a moment to examine Tassi’s rendition of Judith Beheading Holofernes. Artemisia remarks that it was as if Judith were “slicing a piece of bread.” Even though Tassi painted Judith in the midst of performing a great, gory, and grisly act, he still felt the need to depict her as feminine and fragile. This is what the film Artemisia has done to the famous woman painter Artemisia. It takes a story about a young woman overcoming the odds in 17^th century Rome and rising to fame, despite everyone’s obsession with her rape trial and despite the patriarchal culture of the time period, and turns it into a story about a sexually curious girl who falls in love with her painting mentor and rapist. Her art is not central to the film’s theme, which is an unfortunate reflection of her legacy throughout history. 

The film makes it clear that the Pope and Catholic Church were very influential during that time period, and connections to high-ranking officials in the church were very important, even for artists. Most major works of art from that time period depicted Biblical scenes or were commissions from wealthy patrons. The film attempts to depict the shift in the artistic technique of the time period from idealized and person-centered to realistic and with more of an emphasis on the surroundings of the figure rather than just the figure alone. 

Artemisia paints her own version of Judith Beheading Holofernes. This is shown in the film. In it, Judith and the other woman are shown as strong, and are putting all their weight and energy into what they are doing, which is severing a man’s head from his body. All delicate feminine sensibilities are gone from the form and posture of the women. The film reduces it to a painting that Artemisia does out of jealously and spite, claiming it is a self-portrait of her beheading Tassi, rather than depicting it as a work of art that shows she has her surpassed her ex-mentor with a much more realistic and appropriate depiction of the act. 

The film is accurate in its depiction of the sexist and patriarchal values of the culture Artemisia was born into, especially in the framing of the rape and rape trial as Artemisia’s father “protecting Artemisia”, “losing is honor”, and trying to “win it back”, rather than a violent and personal crime that Artemisia experienced on her own personhood. The depiction of Artemisia herself was very disappointing, if not flat-out insulting. I would not recommend this film to a person learning about art per se, because although it gave a little context to the political, religious, and cultural climate surrounding art during that time period, art was not the central theme.

Sources

Cohen, Elizabeth S. "The Trials Of Artemisia Gentileschi: A Rape As History."  

Sixteenth Century Journal 31.1 (2000): 47. MasterFILE Premier. Web.

 Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting

Websites for Bibliophiles

bib·lio·phile

noun \ˈbi-blē-ə-ˌfī(-ə)l\

: a lover of books especially for qualities of format; also : a book collector 
(via: merriam-webster.com)

I love books. I love reading. I love talking about books I'm reading and have read. I love buying books (a little too much).

If you love books, you should check out these websites made for bibliophiles like you and me.


Communities for book lovers:

Goodreads.com

The best way I can describe GoodReads is by calling it a Facebook for readers. You fill your virtual shelves with books you have read, are reading, or want to read. You can update what page you are on with the book you're currently reading while writing page-by-page reviews, read other people's reviews, follow and connect with your favorite authors, and add friends and follow their reviews. It's pretty addictive, trust me. You can also enter to win a number of their giveaways where authors on GoodReads regularly give away prereleased books. Check it out! Here's my account!
 

BookCrossing.com

Have you ever heard of geocaching? Well, Book Crossing is a lot like that. You register a book online by giving it it's own special code, "release" it into the wild for someone to find, and once it's found they will go in Book Crossing, enter the code, and say that they've found it. It's a lot like Where's George? On the side bars you'll be kept up-to-date on recently released and recently caught books. You can even search for books released in a specific city.

Book Crossing also has it's own forum where readers can go and talk about reading, writing, releasing, where you can find first edition Hemmingways, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

I have an account here too! My favorite places to release books are in coffee shops and in different locations around my university.

PaperBackSwap.com

It's not just for paperbacks! Register with Paper Back Swap and you automatically have access to every other user's library. If there's a book you want, you can search for it. If someone else has it, you can request it and they will ship it to you for free! There is one catch, though. For every book you request you use a "credit". List ten of your own books after signing up to get two free credits. Every time someone requests a book on your self and you ship it to them, you get another credit. You can also buy credits. Credits and shipping may cost some money, but you can actually get quite a few books for much less than the deals you would get in bookstore.

Paper Back Swap also allows you to build shelves of books you are currently reading, your favorite books, and books on your wishlist. If you are signed up for email notifications, Paper Book Swap will alert you if a book on your wishlist becomes available. It's pretty handy. Click to see my account!

Looking to buy books? Here are some of my favorite places to buy good books on the cheap online:

AbeBooks.com

You can search for books new or used and it lists a multitude of sellers side-by-side so you will always get the best price. With AbeBooks you can quite literally buy books with the change in your pocket. It's great for buying textbooks as well. You can also sell back your books or become a professional seller through Abe Books. It even has it's own forums!

BookDepository.com

Taken from their website, "The Book Depository is the UK's largest dedicated online bookseller, offering the largest range of titles in the world, available for dispatch within 48 hours. Founded in 2004 to make 'All Books To All' we focus on selling 'less of more' rather than 'more of less', differentiating ourselves from other retailers who increasingly focus on bestsellers."

Did I mention they offer free shipping to over 100 different countries?

BetterWorldBooks.com

This is definitely my favorite site for buying books. For every book bought on Better World Books a book is donated to someone in need. Profits from your book purchases will also go toward their literacy programs and non-profit partners, including as Books for Africa and Room to Read.

There are frequent sales throughout the year, so you can always buy books here on the cheap, or you can shop through there bargain bin and find books in good condition for only a few dollars.

Shipping is always free, but there is an optional charge to offset your carbon emissions. It's usually always under a dollar, no matter how large your order is.

Better World Books is also great for buying and selling textbooks. You can sell other books back to Better World books also, and if they aren't buying the books you're looking to get rid of, you can donate them and they'll pay for the shipping!

Where you can read and download free ebooks and audiobooks:

Gutenberg.org

Project Gutenberg offers over 36,000 free ebooks to download to your PC, Kindle, Android, iOS or other portable device. Choose between ePub, Kindle, HTML and simple text formats.
We carry high quality ebooks: All our ebooks were previously published by bona fide publishers. We digitized and diligently proofed them with the help of thousands of volunteers.
No fee or registration is required.

Audible.com

You may have seen it's commercials or online ads. Audible is a website offering audiobooks for your downloading pleasure. You can download an audiobookto listen to on your computer, mp3 player, or burn to a CD.

Audible is not a free service, though. It's a subscription-based website where you much pay a minimum of $14.95 a month for one credit. You can download one audiobook per credit.

I ended up scoring two free books from Audible, though. Through a special offer, I received two free credits when I signed up. They asked for my payment information before I could download anything. I downloaded The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson and 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. As soon as they were done downloading, I canceled my membership and got to keep my free audiobooks.

books.google.com

Google has a whole online library of ebooks that you can access for free, from textbooks to bestsellers. With a Google account you can save books my adding them to your library.

Google also has an ebookstore. Check out their best of the free section for free ebooks you can read online or download to your computer.

Other book sites to keep in mind:

WhatShouldIReadNext.com

Type the title of your favorite books, the book you last read, or your favorite author and What Should I Read Next? will give you a list of recommendations.

PosterText.com

Posters containing chapters of your favorite literary classics! Gaps in the words of the poster create well-known scenes from each book. Posters may contain one or two chapters to as much as the entire text!

Have fun exploring the world wide library! Is there a good book site you've come across? Share it below in the comments!

Blogging for the Girl Effect: Human Trafficking

The number of slaves in the world today is far greater than ever before in history.

- E. Benjamin Skinner, A Crime so Monstrous

There are more individuals in slavery today than at the height of the trans-atlantic slave trade.

- The Polaris Project

Human trafficking is a very different field than consensual sex work. Trafficking is modern-day slavery. It is an issue that affects both men and women and all victims are important and deserve to be recognized. Girls and women are trafficked at much higher rates than boys, though. Many girls who are trafficked are as young as six years old.

Victims in the sex trafficking industry are raped daily, receive little or no medical care, are subjected to botched, late-term abortions, receive no schooling, little food, are brutally beaten by their pimps and often die from such beatings, as well as from untreated sexually transmitted infections.

TRAFFIK by Norman Jean Roy

How to girls end up in these situations? In developing countries, contraception is either illegal or not made easily available. Poor families may have a large number of children, sometimes more than they are able to provide for. In the cycle of poverty girls always lose. They are sometimes sold into slavery by their families. In other instances families might be tricked by traffickers into thinking their daughters will be taken to the city to work or receive an education, only for them to later be forced into prostitution by their captors after they are taken from their homes.

If girls are able to escape from their brothels and return home they are often shunned or stigmatized by their villages and often even by their own family.

Human trafficking is the second largest industry in the world, pulling in about $32 billion annually.

Two children are sold every minute.

Human trafficking does not just affect developing countries. The countries with the highest recorded amounts of human trafficking are include: Belarus, the Republic of Moldova, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Albania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania, China, Thailand, and Nigeria.

Human trafficking is also a large problem in the United States. Over 100,000 children in the United States alone are forced into prostitution or pornography each year. Trafficking tends to increase around areas hosting large events, such as the Super Bowl or the Olympics.

The average age of entry into human trafficking and pornography in the United States is twelve years old.

Women like Anuradha Koirala, CNN's 2010 Hero of the Year and the founder and executive director of Maiti Nepal, are working to combat human trafficking and to provide a reliable means of recovery for its victims.

Since 1993, Koirala's work with Maiti Nepal has led to the rescue of more than 12,000 Nepali women and girls.

Somaly Mam, CNN's 2006 Hero of the Year, president of AFESIP (Acting for Women in Distressing Situations) and president of the Somaly Mam Foundation, is another women who rescues trafficked girls and helps pave a road to recovery for victims of the sex trade industry.

Mam was once a victim of sexual slavery herself. She shares her personal story into and out of the brothels in her book The Road of Lost Innocence.

The Girl Effect is an organization that strives to empower women by keeping girls in school, which will lead to them to marry when they choose, stay healthy and HIV negative, raise a healthy family, and to be able to provide for themselves, raise the standard of living for their villages, and empower other young girls around them.

By valuing, educating and empowering girls, human trafficking can be cut by a wide margin.


For more information about human trafficking, check out Love146.org, a religiously based organization that strives to educate people about human trafficking and combat its causes. Its website provides shocking personal stories from trafficking victims themselves and from people who have gone into brothels to recover these victims.

Read its online zine here.

If you would like to make a donation to an organization that is combating human trafficking and its causes (and I urge you to donate to a charity that is completely secular, these girls need food, shelter, and medical attention, not bibles and preachers), I highly recommend Maiti Nepal as well as The Somaly Mam Foundation, and of course, The Girl Effect.

Hey, so, I'm in college now.

Remember this post? Well, I ended up at the University of North Texas! It is really great, and I will expound on that in later posts.

I live in Crumley Hall, an all-girl dorm, and apparently one of the greenest dorm buildings in the United States. Go us.

I am having a lot of fun here. No one else from my old high school went out of state, so I knew practically no one here from the start, which I am now thankful for. Starting over with new people gives me a chance to start fresh without bringing any of my past here with me.

My current major of interest is International Studies, and right now I am looking at minors in Peace Studies, Women's Studies, and possibly Spanish or Japanese or both, depending on how I manage my time and if I end up doing study abroad over the summer. I have a feeling I will look back on that list and laugh. Haha.

While I am here, with the campus and world at my fingertips, there are a few things I want to accomplish. I have been building a college bucket list of sorts. My current goals are as follows:

- Play in the fountain (Did it!)
- Get on the roof of a building at my university
- Graduate with honors
- Learn Spanish
- Be an officer for a club
- Study abroad
- Do an intership, preferably with the Girl Scouts of America, the Texas GSA Network, the Human Rights Campaign, Heifer International, or with some awesome organizations like them
- Become a vegetarian (I'm working on it!)
- Have a relationship (I realize college is not an expensive dating service, like some students seem to think it is, but people tend to learn a lot about themselves through relationships, and there are many young, intelligent, attractive queer students here so, yes, I want to date people.)
- Help organize a protest or a rally
- Conquer the rec center's rock wall
- Attend Dallas's pride parade (It was so awesome.)
- Volunteer

I am sure I will be adding more to the list as the year progresses, but that is all I have right now.

There are plenty of awesome people to meet and I have been learning more things outside the classroom than in it so far, but I am only taking lower level classes right now.

Oh, I am also apart of the honors college! It is not that incredibly special, actually, but I know it will help me get into graduate school. I plan on taking honor's writing next semester which I will hopefully pour my heart and soul in and come out a more polished writer and poet than I am now.

Now begins the journey of self-discovery and personal growth and coming onto my own and becoming a contributing member of society and what have you.

Go Mean Green!

Caw!

Christians openly advocate killing and raping atheists on FOX News Facebook page

They said there were over 8,000 death threats.

8,000 death threats.

There were threats of killing, many by firearm (how many actually specifically advocated to "shoot 'em"?), and raping the atheist heathens galore, several typed directly after they professed their love for Jesus Christ.

All this comes after American Atheists filed a law suit to have the cross removed from Ground Zero.

(source)

"The cross has become a Christian icon. It has been blessed by so-called holy men a few times, and presented as a reminder that God, in his infinite power of goodness, who couldn’t be bothered to stop the Muslim terrorists, or stop the fire, or hold up the buildings to stop 3000 people from being crushed, cared enough to bestow upon us some rubble that resembles a cross. Ridiculous."
- American Atheists' Blog

I know, I know. Every Christian person who may stumble across the comments made on FOX's Facebook page may think something along the lines of, "Those aren't real Christians!" or, "Not all Christians are like that." I agree with you, and most atheists would agree with you too. We have friends and family members who are Christian. Some may use to have been Christians themselves. We are perfectly aware that not every Christian on the planet is dead set on killing and raping every atheist they come across.

As shocking as some of those commenters' words may be, this violence really does not surprise me. As a queer person, I am very aware of the long, growing list of hate crimes committed against gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans* and intersexed people every day. Many of those crimes are religiously motivated.

The buck does not stop there. The pro-life movement is made almost completely of religious individuals, and as Sandy Rapp has said, "Praying in the light, bombing in the night," with a total of 96 incidences of violence -- including murder, death threats, vandalism, arson and bombing -- against United States and Canadian abortion clinics in 2010.

Again, "Not all Christians are like that! They do not represent all Christians!" I can hear it and I agree. Just like the extremists on 9/11 do not represent all followers of Islam and Westboro does not represent all Baptists, I understand these violent words are not endorsed by all followers of the Christian god.

Is it surprising that there is so much violence perpetrated in the name of Christianity, though? Look at the Christian holy book, the Bible. There is rape, murder, and God-sanctioned killing littered throughout it's pages.

"Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."
-Numbers 31:17-18

"If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days."
-Deuteronomy 22:28-29

"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."
-Psalm 137:9

"I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not."
-Jude 1:5

(There is really more blood in the Bible than your standard Hollywood slasher, symbolic and otherwise.)
(I prefer the King James version because unicorns!)

And of course, in the end, atheists suffer eternally in the fires of Hell. God is love!

I have blogged before about violence in the Bible the United States' shaky Christian/atheist relationship (click here!).

I have just been thinking a bit, we have all heard similar violent things from the mouths of Christians before. According to Christians, the Christian god loves everyone. That makes it okay for him to send millions of people into the fires of Hell to suffer eternally. He loves them. Some may even argue sinners and non-believers send themselves to Hell. "How dare you use your God-given rationality to think rationally!"

If someone has a gun to your head and tells you do do something or they will shoot, and you not obeying them causes you to get shot, it is not the shooter's fault you were shot, it is your own fault because you disobeyed them.

Those comments on Fox's Facebook page are shocking, but not surprising. We have heard them before, and we will be hearing similar words from believers again and again for the rest of our lives.

My Second Pride Parade and Being Assumed Straight

Last month I attended my second pride parade in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I walked with the Youth Services Center of Tulsa's float. They have special programs for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth, and I was proud to get to walk with them alongside many other awesome teenagers, a stunning drag queen, and one of my best friends, Lauren.


I do not have my rainbow flag anymore, unfortunately. When I was passing out candy (we aren't legally allowed to toss candy in Tulsa, which is ridiculous) I had it in my pocket. One moment I looked down it had disappeared. I was incredibly upset. I felt like a raccoon who had lost her tail. I will have to get another one soon.

My best friend, Lauren, is straight. It was her first pride parade. She had a good time, despite the heat, and was very entertained by the wide variety of people there. I explained what bears were and what the bisexual flag looked like.

She was a little confused by the bears. Ha, I am honestly a little confused by them as well.

Lauren is a very good ally, but something she said near the beginning of the parade really struck me.

"If I see a cute guy here it won't matter."
"Why is that?"
"Well, he'll probably be gay."
"And?"
"It's sad."

She meant she would not have a chance with most of the men she saw at the parade. She also commented on how everyone at the parade was probably assuming she was gay. It did not bother her much, but she had never been in that kind of situation before, people assuming she was the opposite sexual orientation (which is surprising, seeing as she plays softball, haha).

After she said those things it made me think. It is like that every day for me.

If I see a cute girl anywhere, possibly excluding a Tegan and Sara concert, chances are about 90% of the time she will be straight. It is the most important thing, finding out if a woman is gay or not. Before I take anything else into account, I have to consider a girl's possible sexual orientation. If I hit on a straight girl mistakenly, it can be really, really bad. If something like had happened at my old high school I could have been written up for harassment. If a guy hits on me, a lesbian, mistakenly, oops, not a big deal in his eyes or in the eyes of anyone else. He might even come on stronger and see nothing wrong with his actions.

I often get asked by dentists, doctors, co-workers, people I have just met and people I am not out to about boyfriends. It is always, "Do you have a boyfriend?" or, "When you get married..."

I do not have boyfriends. I currently cannot legally marry the person I will eventually fall in love with. This is a reality I face almost every day, being assumed straight. If someone assumes I am straight I will correct them.

Straight people often do not understand why I feel the need to vocalize my sexuality. It is not the first thing I tell people when I meet them and it is not my most important characteristic, but it is something I like people to know.

It is because I am tired of being assumed straight. I have been assumed straight since I emerged from the womb.

I realize this is not a big deal to most people. Can you imagine, if you are straight, people assuming you are a gay man or a lesbian every day of your life? Can you imagine growing up and having adults talk about your future husband, if you are a man, or your future wife, if you are a woman? Can you imagine being hit on by the same sex and having to come out as straight over and over again?

Now imagine people telling you to keep the fact that you are straight quiet. "You don't need to talk about it so much." "Why do you have to tell everyone you're straight?" "Why can't you just keep it quiet?"

Do you understand why I refuse to be kept quiet?