Photo by Caroline Schiff (click photo for Flickr page)
See? Occupy Wall Street doesn’t have leaders! There just happens to be a bunch of white men standing above everyone else and saying things.
Feministe: “Steven Greenstreet proves he’s definitely not a misogynist by making rape jokes.” . . . one of men who made the “Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street” video is a total creep in several other ways! Like making rape jokes, stating that “an erection legitimizes everything”, and tracking down photos of a feminist blogger to make pervy comments about her. (Warning for the comments section. They’re letting in ‘dissenters’.)
Pandagon also has some interesting information to share about Mr. Greenstreet.
Ball Buster: “#occupybaltimore discourages police involvement in sexual assault cases”
The Crawdad Hole: “Dudebro Occupation”. . . more on Occupy Baltimore’s literature discouraging sexual assault victims from reporting it to the police.
I Blame the Patriarchy: “Storytime Korner”. . . very good comment thread with lots of other women commiserating about how male-focused Occupy is.
RadFemCrafts: “#OCCUPYHARRISBURG #BRO”
Echidne of the Snakes: from Suzie, “Occupying public space”. . .
How revolutionary it would be for feminists to occupy a public space day after day.
Scum-O-Rama: a new graphic, “we are occupy wall street. join us, bitches!”
I’ve already linked to FCM’s OWS post on Rad Fem Hub a couple of times, but to make this a more complete link roundup, here it is again: “Anarchist Politics Inform Occupy Wall Street”. The comment section is still very active!
From complex-brown on Tumblr, “BLACK OUT! At Occupy Philadelphia”:
We had a Black Out! at Occupy Philadelphia. Why?
Saturday, two sisters were called Niggers by two of the volunteers at Occupy Philadelphia at the cell-phone charging stations. They were also told to go back to Africa, and that each white man should own a slave. When the sista’s called security, security asked them to leave the premises [. . .]
Many of the people there to support Occupy Philadelphia came to us to tell us that all of us are people and that race is behind us! They told us that we were being divisive. Bullshit.
When we circled up to come up with a constructive way to address the people, we were constantly interrupted by white people who could not respect our safe space. These people said that it was a public space, and we couldn’t have a group that excuded them. [. . .]
As the sister was talking about her experience, there were some members in support, and there were even members who came up to us afterwards to show support. But many of the people were asking us to hurry up, calm down and finish.
From an article in Shakesville’s OWS link roundup:
Facilitators spearheaded a General Assembly proposal to limit the drumming to two hours a day. “The drumming is a major issue which has the potential to get us kicked out,” said Lauren Digion, a leader on the sanitation working group.
… “They’re imposing a structure on the natural flow of music,” said Seth Harper, an 18-year-old from Georgia. “The GA decided to do it … they suppressed people’s opinions. I wanted to do introduce a different proposal, but a big black organizer chick with an Afro said I couldn’t.“
Rad Fem Hub has the final version of the OWS pamphlet up as well, in both pdf form and doc format. And again, here is a link to the FeminismNowOWS website with the text from their flier.
Also, if you are on the Twitter, post links to these posts (and mine) with the hashtag #OccupyWallStreet. Adbusters has a live feed coming from the tag on their main page. Spread the word!
Please drop any other similar links in the comments that I missed!
Updated to add:
Here’s a comic from Hoax Zine, based on actual events at Occupy Baltimore, regarding how un-seriously sexual harassment is taken.
[This links list was cross-posted to Rad Fem Hub along with more specific ideas for activism. . . and a new flier I made!]
Against All Evidence 
Good round up. And proof that Occupy is just another dudely thing, specifically a white dudely thing. Everyone else need not apply for “the revolution”.
All of these links are disturbing. They are making me re-think my occupy Canada experience. I was able to speak, but it was brief as I didn’t feel comfortable. There were women there, and some indigenous groups, but there was mostly white men. Although many women did speak, a few select white, angry young men took over the megaphone and the message. I wish I was more “assertive” and took the megaphone and said something big – but i didn’t. I didn’t feel “safe” to say too much. I certainly didn’t feel safe to camp out. What i found particularly disgusting from this post was the “N-word” calling and “Go back to Africa” comments that two black women experienced in Phili. This really made my jaw unable to close. It is very disappointing that this is happening – however, I think with more women and more non-white people joining and speaking up against the clearly white male supremacist domination that is happening, it can be improved.
Kudos to all of the sisters going down there with pamphlets and challenges. Thank you for bringing this all to the forefront.
What strikes me about the writing on the liberal feminist sites (feminste and pandagon, for instance) is that they are going out of their way to split the hairs they must always split: THESE men are assholes. THESE men have done something shitty. THESE men should be pilloried. Then they get shit tons of commentary that shows that, huh, a bunch of men are assholes/have done something shitty/should be pilloried. All those thousands and thousands of words to say what Twisty has summed up in one line: Men Hate You. And Pandagon was even sure to note that liking porn isn’t the problem, it’s just getting someone else to pay for it that sucks. Do they really never get tired of this incredibly tiresome charade that some men actually think women are human and give a shit about us as something other than meat? It continues to amaze me (when I happen to see those sites in passing) that they just can’t grok the simplest of concepts no matter how much evidence there is. Against all evidence indeed.
it *is* striking isnt it? the comments on pandagon hit it all home, as the comments on all fun fem blogs always do. they are “mixed spaces” and believe in the myth of male exceptionalism…being feminists-for-profit makes their motivations highly suspect of course. if feminism actually succeeded, they would all be out of a job, and a totes cool hobby!!!! whereas radfems know that our time could be SO MUCH better spent, if only we were free to spend it how we want. and THIS, my friends, is NOT how any of us want to be spending our time. is it? i mean really. blogging fucking sucks, and misogynist men actively hate women and actively support their own male power at womens expense, and its all deliberate and its not an accident and its not a misunderstanding and they WILL NEVER STOP.
and yes, twisty said it best, and shortest. 🙂
sorry, i shouldve said “all men are misogynists who” not “misogynist men.” that implies there are some men out there that arent misogynist, or who dont actively do all of these things.
That picture says it all that’s for sure. I haven’t participated in Occupy anything, but I’ve visited a few of them. I support the idea, but I hate that men take over these things. In my own experience protesting I’ve seen it happen over and over again. In fact, at one protest an angry white male bought his own bullhorn and brought it so he could shout over the rest of us and didn’t even represent us accurately.
I’m much more excited to see the 51% concept grow and trying to figure out what I can do for that to help.