Non lasciarmi solo
I went to La Rondine tonight at SF Opera, the last performance of the run, and it was fantastic. The singing was gorgeous, the acting was passionate, and staging was beautiful, and the show was perfect, wonderful. The final duet between Ruggero (Misha Didyk) and Magda (Angela Gheorghiu) was exquisite and brought me and the person next to me to tears. Non lasciarmi solo! No! Non lasciarmi solo! The Lisette/Prunier duet at the end of Act I was more tender than any of the other times I saw it, with nuances of real affection between them, the way he held her waist as they walked off stage, the way she leaned into him. Everyone was alive tonight, just a touch extra vivid, so even Rambaldo (Philip Skinner), a minor part, was forceful and expressive.
Vi trascina il destino!…
Forse, come la rondine,
migrerete oltre il mare,
verso un chiaro paese
di sogno… Verso il sole,
verso l’Amore…
E forse…
MAGDA
Sono venuta a te contaminata!
RUGGERO
Che m’importa!
MAGDA
Tu non sai tutto!
RUGGERO
So che sei mia!
MAGDA
Trionfando sono passata
tra la vergogna e l’oro!
RUGGERO
No! Non dirmi!… Non voglio!…
MAGDA
Tu m’hai dato un tesoro…
La tua fede, il tuo amore,
ma non devo ingannarti!
RUGGERO
Quale inganno?…
MAGDA
Posso esser l’amante, non la sposa.
La sposa che tua madre vuole e crede!
RUGGERO
Taci! Le tue parole
son la mia perdizione!
Che farò senza te che m’hai svelato
quanto si possa amare?…
Ma non sai che distruggi la mia vita!
16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence
16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign, begun in 1991 by the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute, which was sponsored by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership. 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence 2007 runs from November 25, International Day Against Violence Against Women, to December 10, International Human Rights Day. The 2007 theme is Demanding Implentation, Challenging Obstacles: End Violence Against Women.
I’d like to write something thoughtful and inspiring, but I don’t have much to say. Violence against women, against transgendered people, against non-gender-conforming people, against anyone who dares to be a woman in a misogynist world or dares to break the bounds of gender roles, is overwhelmingly widespread and brutal. Only the most recent things that I’ve run across:
From the Economist, “A Humanitarian Disaster Unfolds,” November 15, 2007[1]:
The conflict [in Congo] has taken on another dimension of brutality too. Women have been raped on an unprecedented scale, in the thousands. According to experts, rape is being used as a weapon of war. Such are the scale and violence of the attacks in eastern Congo, claims Yakin Erturk, the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women, that they constitute a war crime. Rape is being carried out by all sides and, worryingly, by civilians too.
Nice listening material for an evening run, eh? Then there’s the Saudi rape case[2]
The 19-year-old [woman], who has not been named, was travelling in a car with a male friend last year, when the car was attacked by a gang of seven men who raped both of them.
…
Four of the men were convicted of kidnapping – but the court also sentenced the woman and her friend to receive 90 lashes each for the crime of “illegal mingling”.
Last week the court increased the woman’s sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison.
It also banned her lawyer from the courtroom and took away his licence.
According to a BBC article from yesterday[3], the Saudi justice ministry has released a statement that “The charged girl is a married woman who confessed to having an affair with the man she was caught with,” contradicting not only the woman’s testimony
The justice ministry statement is at odds with previous published testimony of the woman, who is a Shia Muslim from the Qatif area.
She has reportedly said she met the car-owner in order to retrieve a photo of them together, having herself recently got married.
but also its own original statement:
The woman was initially to be punished for violating strict gender segregation laws in Saudi Arabia, for riding in the car of a man who was not related to her when they were both attacked.
The intent behind the justice ministry’s more recent statement is clearly to portray the woman as deserving of the punishment. By alleging that the woman was having an affair, they’re trying to divert attention from her protest of their twisted sentencing to her sexual past, implying that her past is relevant to the fact that she was raped and that she deserves the 200 lashes and jail time for <em>something</em>, anything other than the real reason: she fought her sentence in court and called media attention to the injustice of her situation. They’re fabricating smears about her character to damage her credibility and the perceived legitimacy of her actions. Focusing purely on the justice ministry’s actions, it’s clear that the situation is beyond fucked up. Punishing the woman with 90 lashes for being in the presence of a man she’s not related to was shocking; the increase to 200 lashes and six months of jail time is clearly meant to punish her for speaking out against this injustice, particularly given that her lawyer was banned from the courtroom and had his license taken away, effectively preventing the woman from further legal action [2]. As the second article points out, “Her sentence was increased on appeal after judges wanted to punish her for attempting to use the media to influence the case.” The increased punishment is for bringing media attention to a sexist, misogynist ruling and pointing out to the international community that the ruling and the court are indeed sexist and misogynist.
In the meantime, the Bush administration’s response? Tacit condoning:
“The Bush administration has refused to condemn the sentence and said it will not protest against an internal Saudi decision,” [Hillary Clinton] said.
…
A state department spokesman on Tuesday called the verdict “astonishing”, but said it was not its place to call for the ruling to be changed. [2]
The message on all sides is the familiar one: if you’re a woman and you’re raped, it’s your fault. And no one’s going to listen to you if you speak up or demand justice, so you should just shut up now. In fact, if you try to speak up, people will make up slurs against you and say that you’re a slut or a whore, as if that were relevant to the fact that you were raped. So, shut up please. It’s not nice to rail against sexual violence. It’s a common theme in the response to sexual violence against women: it came up in the treatment of Native American victims of sexual violence. For me, 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is about rejecting that message, about not being blase and accepting each new atrocity as the way things are, about not burying those facts under a soothing babble of House eps, NYT op-eds, cookbooks, and anything else that will mask reality. For me, 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is about speaking up, about facing the ugly reality of gender violence and refusing to ignore it, refusing to accept that things will always be this way, that in the U.S., one in every six women is a victim of sexual assault and one in every four women experiences domestic violence. Gender-based violence is overwhelming and horrifying and it seems like it’s too much to deal with, but we can face it and fight it. The Center for Women’s Global Leadership has a list of suggactions: 16 suggested actions for 16 days. No. 1 is Educate Yourself; No. 2 is Spread the Word. Let’s start from there and move on, shall we?
Via Cara at Feministe and Justice is a Woman With a Sword
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[1] The Economist, “A Humanitarian Disaster Unfolds,” November 15, 2007
[2] BBC, “Saudis back rape victim sentence,” November 22, 2007
[3] BBC, “Saudi rape victim ‘having affair,’” November 26, 2007
Dinner: fava beans and bruschette
I cleaned out my fridge of its usual standbys before going to my parents’ house for the holiday and didn’t go grocery shopping when I came back. Today, I came home from work to
One heel of stale bread
Three pods of fava beans
One overripe persimmon
One bulb of garlic
and the usual inhabitants of the refrigerator: butter for baking, eggs for pasta, pecorino romano and parmigiano, the jar of salsa I keep forgetting about, crushed chili flakes, half a roll of salami from Mastrelli’s in the Ferry Building, and lemons from the tree in my parents’ back yard. The problem with waiting to go shopping until the Tuesday farmers’ market is that Monday nights require dinners, too.
Bruschetta
Slice the stale bread into slices about 1/2″-3/4″ in thick, place in a stainless steel frying pan over low heat. Cover with a lid to retain moisture, softening the bread. Check frequently to see that it’s toasting and not drying out or burning.
Peel a clove of garlic and rub it on the bread.
Drizzle olive oil over it or dip in olive oil.
Fava beans
Mince a clove of garlic and mix it with olive oil in a frying pan or sauce pan. Leave it to allow the garlic to flavor the oil.
Peel the fava beans out of the pod, then shell them out of their individual skins. Stick your fingernails in them and pull away until you can see the bean inside; the skins are surprisingly thick.
Put the frying pan on low heat until the garlic begins to sizzle, smell, and turn golden.
Toss the fava beans into the pan with a bit of crushed red pepper and a grind of black pepper and a squirt of lemon juice. Mix it all around, toss in a spoonful of water, and cover the pan. The water will steam and cook the beans.
After a few minutes, take the cover off and let the rest of the water steam away. Stir the beans around until they look tender and the skin blisters a bit, but before the garlic burns, and eat the beans with the oil and herbs.
That’s pretty much the story of my post-thesis eating habits last term: bruschetta and a random vegetable: Swiss chard or spinach sauteed with garlic, boiled soy beans, baby carrots, salad. It was hot and I was tired of cooking, so I went for something simple and low fuss, yet tasty. Bruschetta, with really powerful garlic, really good bread (it has to be the right kind for toasting–french bread is too light, pugliese is too heavy and thick, and ciabatta is just right), and flavorful olive oil. I like the Rustic Rounds from Acme Bakery in SF and olive oil from Stonehouse California Olive Oil. Stonehouse’s House Blend is a little fruity and has a strong taste of ripe olives at the end. It’s a refreshingly olive-y olive oil and it’s reasonably priced, given its quality – a 750mL bottle for $16.
‘Tis the Season
I’ve seen a few links recently for people, organizations, and causes asking for donations and I’ve also seen the annual holiday wishlist meme circulating, so here’s my wishlist for 2007 (well, part 1. I’m sure I’ll come up with more stuff later.):
Find a non-profit, cause, organization, charity, people in need, etc., and donate. Give what you can, whether it’s time, money, donations of food and clothing, attention (political causes? Write letters to your local newspapers, write to your public officials, blog, call your public officials), or your spare change. Find something that matters to you and give something now.
For starters (if there’s something that interests you, leave it in the comments and I’ll add it):
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Ruggerdavey is a middle school teacher in Louisville, Kentucky. Every year, her school raises money to take their neediest students shopping for winter clothes they otherwise can’t get. 80% of the students in the school qualify for free and reduced lunch; one of her students has no electricity at home because they can’t pay for utilities; some students’ families can’t afford groceries. As Ruggerdavey says,
With so many worries about how to survive, clothing is often not a top priority. The students shiver in class because their parents can’t get them sweatshirts. They come to school in the rain without anything to keep them dry and in the winter without hats and gloves or even winter coats. Some come in wearing the same clothes every day no matter how dirty they are, because they have nothing else to wear.
Because of this, every year before winter break, we sponsor a shopping spree for our neediest kids. If you can spare even a dollar, send the money to my kids. Cash or a check; American dollars, Canadian dollars, pounds, euros, whatever – we can use your money.
See her posts here and here for more information about donating, the students, and the school.
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The Pretty Bird Woman House is a women’s shelter on the Standing Rock reservation in South Dakota. It provides emergency shelter, advocacy support, and educational programs for women on the Standing Rock reservation who have been victims of domestic violence or sexual assault. Due to frequent vandalism of its facilities (and then torching, once the shelter moved out of the vandalized building), the Pretty Bird Woman House was forced to move and is now raising funds to buy a permanent facility. For more on sexual violence against Native American women, the work that the Pretty Bird Woman House does, and links to further information, see my previous post. (I was going to put that all in this post, but it got too long. Go read!)
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Street Sheet is the local homeless newspaper in San Francisco. It is written primarily by homeless and formerly homeless people and “provides its readers with a perspective on homelessness that mainstream media simply cannot match.” Additionally, “[i]t provides a unique opportunity to its vendors as well: a dignified alternative to panhandling. The STREET SHEET (cover price $1) is given free to qualified poor and homeless San Franciscans, who get to retain 100% of the proceeds from their sales.”
I’ve seen a lot of Street Sheet vendors in my neighborhood and in Civic Center, an area I pass through frequently, and I find the paper an interesting, thought-provoking read. The articles definitely address issues that I wouldn’t have paid attention to otherwise (e.g. gentrification of Fillmore and now Bayview and the effects on the predominantly black communities there); challenge the depiction of homeless people in the media, particularly the SF Chronicle; and provide homeless people a space for their voices. Furthermore, as a friend of mine wrote to me, “i think that putting written word in the hands of someone hopping into public transportation can do a lot to remind the public homeless people are people and that the suspension of some presupposed notions is probably in order.” Right on, D.
You can support Street Sheet by mailing donations to
Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco
468 Turk Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
or by purchasing Street Sheet the next time you see a vendor. The International Homeless and Homelessness Directory lists homeless street newspapers around the world and Real Change News provides a comprehensive list of U.S. homeless newspapers. See if your city is on the list and buy a paper.
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The San Francisco Opera is a world-class opera company in its 87th year. Their mission is
* To present opera performances of the highest international quality available to the widest possible audiences.
* To perpetuate and enrich the operatic art form.
* To be creative and innovative in all aspects of opera.
* To take a leadership role in training, arts education and audience development.
SFOp stages fantastic productions and makes opera accessible to the general public: tickets are affordable ($20-$25 for the balcony; $10 standing room tickets); they have student, sr. citizen, and military rush tickets; they put on free telecasts in AT&T Park and free Opera in the Park productions in the summer. They premiere new works (Philip Glass’ Appomattox in 2007), have fellowship programs for young singers, invite international stars (Angela Gheorghiu!), and help keep the art form alive and vibrant. However, the productions are expensive and ticket sales only cover 39% of the company’s expenses; donations are what fund SF Opera. Information about donating, volunteering, and other ways of supporting the opera are here.
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Perennial personal favorites:
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Donate blood! Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood. At the same time, only 5% of the eligible U.S. population donates blood. The Red Cross says it better than I can:
Blood is needed for emergencies and for people who have cancer, blood disorders, sickle cell, anemia and other illnesses. Some people need regular blood transfusions to live.
Imagine if giving blood was part of everyone’s life. Something you did on a regular basis, like eating at your favorite restaurant. What kind of difference would that make? For nearly 5 million people who receive blood transfusions every year, your donation can make the difference between life and death.
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Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) “is the nation’s leading women’s health care provider, educator, and advocate, serving women, men, teens, and families. For more than 90 years, we’ve done more than any other organization in the United States to improve women’s health and safety, prevent unintended pregnancies, and advance the right and ability of individuals and families to make informed and responsible choices.” Get involved.
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That’s all for now.
Pretty Bird Woman House
The Pretty Bird Woman House is a women’s shelter on the Standing Rock reservation in South Dakota. It provides emergency shelter, advocacy support, and educational programs for women on the Standing Rock reservation who have been victims of domestic violence or sexual assault. Due to frequent vandalism of its facilities (and then torching, once the shelter moved out of the vandalized building), the Pretty Bird Woman House was forced to move and is now raising funds to buy a permanent facility.
In April 2007, Amnesty International reported in “The Maze of Injustice: The failure to protect indigenous women from sexual violence in the USA” that
Crime rates on the Reservation often exceed those of its surrounding areas. According to FBI figures, in 2005 South Dakota had the fourth highest rate of “forcible rapes” of women of any US state.
And yet, those figures don’t tell the whole story because
Shocking though these statistics are, it is widely believed that they do not accurately portray the extent of sexual violence against Native American and Alaska Native women.[10]
“Most women who are beaten or raped don’t report to the police. They just shower and go to the clinic [for treatment].”
Native American survivor of sexual violence (identity withheld), February 2006Amnesty International’s interviews with survivors, activists and support workers across the USA suggest that available statistics greatly underestimate the severity of the problem. In the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, for example, many of the women who agreed to be interviewed could not think of any Native women within their community who had not been subjected to sexual violence.
The situation is exacerbated by the legal difficulties that both tribal authorities and federal authorities face in charging rapists and other criminals for crimes committed in or around reservation land. Cases sent for review by federal enforcement often aren’t prosecuted; “in Spokane, an assistant U.S. attorney … simply declined to prosecute, something that crime data show they do in 65 percent of all reservation cases.” (emphases mine) Amnesty’s report suggests, “It appears that Indigenous women in the USA may be targeted for acts of violence and denied access to justice on the basis of their gender and Indigenous identity.” Furthermore, Native American rape and assault victims are likely to be discriminated against based on the assumption that they in some way deserved what happened:
Of particular concern are reports of discriminatory treatment of survivors who are suspected of drinking alcohol before they were attacked. This is particularly worrying because of the prevalent negative stereotypes which link Indigenous women with excessive drinking. A number of the cases brought to Amnesty International’s attention indicated that police often automatically assume that Indigenous women had been drinking when they were targeted for sexual violence. One Alaska Native survivor of rape told Amnesty International that if a woman is suspected of drinking and reports that she has been the victim of sexual violence, “the police will not respond unless she is either hospitalized or dead.”
- Amnesty International (for more information about the discrimination aspect, search for “Discrimination in federal and state prosecutions” within the Amnesty report)
In short, there’s a cycle going where Native American women are targeted for rape and sexual violence; they’re dismissed as drunks when they report what’s happened to them; their cases aren’t prosecuted; and thus people continue to attack them with impunity, because it’s extremely unlikely that they’ll ever be prosecuted and sentenced.
In light of this situation, the Pretty Bird Woman House provides vital services for women. This year, the three shelter staff have
* Served a total of 614 individuals with education and services.
* Answered 397 crisis calls
* Provided emergency shelter to 188 women and 132 children.
* Helped 23 women obtain restraining orders, 10 get divorces, and 16 get medical assistance
* Provided court advocacy support for 28 women, and
* Conducted community education programs for 360 women.
For more information:
Pretty Bird Woman House on blogger
U.S. Senate Hearing on the prevalence of violence against Indian women
NPR Article “Rape Cases on Indian Lands Go Uninvestigated”
NPR Article on the Amnesty Report
Standing Rock Reservation
Via Feministe.
[10] For example, the authors of the US Department of Justice study Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Rape Victimization, note that it “under-estimates the true number of rapes committed each year, because [it] excludes rapes of children and adolescents, as well as… anyone living in… households without telephones.”
FMR: Opera
Nov. 4-19, 2006, WNO production of Madama Butterfly: Lieutenant Pinkerton sung by Arturo Chacon-Cruz (source here). Tenor to keep an ear out for.
May 2008 – get tickets for SFO/Cal Perf’s Little Prince
Nov. 13 – La Rondine (Angela Gheorghiu!)
Nov. 14 – Macbeth (read Macbeth)
Nov. 19 – Rake’s Progress
