Goroyesque

Femme Maison  by  Louise Bourgeois My mum once funnily said something about me eventually getting married and having kids (in the future) when I was 17. I remember I stopped all things, and had a deadly serious discussion with her about this, explained thoroughly she is not allowed to say anything of this sort EVER, and that this kind of rhetoric has contributed to the oppression and misery of billions of women/enbies/trans men, *including herself*.  Not only that, but she was also to discourage other family members fr om doing it to me/others. It worked beautifully . On the other hand, women face hurtful valorisations on both edges of this: 'X is awesome for not having kids' is another way of dehumanising them—saying their value comes from something outside of just being themselves, and fulfilling their humanity in the best possible way. Having said that, I understand why we need to celebrate childless witches as a counter-paradigm of what is a very real and oppressi...

Σήμερα, εργατική πρωτομαγιά, σκέφτομαι, θυμάμαι, συγκινούμαι, αναγνωρίζω, θυμώνω, κι ευχαριστώ. Σκέφτομαι  τη μητέρα μου που δε θεωρούσε επιλογή το να μη μάθουμε από δύο ξένες γλώσσες, αλλά το να δουλεύει δύο οχτάωρες δουλειές για να μας το προσφέρει. Τη σκέφτομαι που θα γυρνούσε μετά από δύο οχτάωρες βάρδιες για να στήσει ένα αυτοσχέδιο θρανίο και να καλύψει όλες τις ώρες διδασκαλίας που χάθηκαν — σκέφτομαι κι εμένα με πυρετό να παραπονιέμαι. Σκέφτομαι και τη μητέρα της που έκανε το ίδιο. Σκέφτομαι τη γιαγιά μου που όταν της λένε ότι έχει "βασιλικό όνομα", αυτή απαντάει πως "εμείς δεν πλουτίσαμε σε βάρος άλλων". Θυμάμαι  να απορώ με τα άλλα παιδιά στην κατασκήνωση που με φώναζαν "πλουσιόπαιδο" και να θυμώνω. Θυμάμαι να έρχεται επίσκεψη η μητέρα μου και να της ζητάω να πει στα άλλα παιδιά πως δεν είναι έτσι, κι αυτή να χαμογελάει και να απαντάει "μα δε σου λείπει τίτοπα". Κι είχε δίκιο — με είχε περιλούσει με μία επίφαση αταξικότητας, ...

'[...] Danaë's rape scene is also a popular theme: imprisoned in a tower of bronze (strong) by her mortal father she gets raped by Zeus, this time turned into golden (stronger!) rain. Nothing here condemns, or even suggests rape. Even in theory, one would find it hard to conceive any representation of rape that would so eye-popping-ly erase rape compared to turning the rapist into a beautiful golden stream that runs between the legs of a naked, beauteous, young woman who is clearly 'aroused' i . Apart from a woman locked inside by one man, and invaded by another, she might also be the archetypical, quintessential ' not-if-she-enjoyed-it ' go-to reference, and she is joined there by descendant filmic variations like Gone With The Wind 's (Victor Fleming, USA, 1939) Scarlett (Vivien Leigh), Lust, Caution 's ( Se, jie ) (Ang Lee, USA, Chine, Taiwan, 2007) Wong Chia Chi (Wei Tang); most controversially met in Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah, USA, UK, 1971); ...

'I've chosen, Grace. I've chosen you...Tonight we free ourselves of Dogville!' i he says, as he begins to thrust his body on top of her. Grace (Nicole Kidman) seems motherly, comforting, but quietly undeterred in her position; she speaks quietly, but her words are sonorous when she womansplains[sic] ii that '[…]it would be so beautiful, but, from the point of view of our love, so completely wrong'. Being consent-illiterate, and having ignored her non-verbal cues thus far (she doesn't kiss back, does not react to his touch), he is now forced to see what she is saying. It cannot be ignored: ' We were to meet in freedom ' , she concludes. And he, reluctantly, stops. So, hey , freedom is somewhere and is not there . It is a place where people meet , and somewhere her in particular and Tom 'were to meet'. Lovers do not meet in unfree places: rapists and victims do. Not only does she theorise freedom as a place that is not there, and th...

Can you hear me? I cannot both shout and pretend I do not have a heavy accent. Susan Sontag talks a lot about how we 'regard the pain of others', how we examine horror stories that are a real experience, concerning real people—usually non-white—from afar. How we become immobilised, numb, when all these stories are spectacularised and brought to us in abundance. 'Give us twenty minutes and we will give you the world', claims a popular TV news broadcaster. Surely. But... which word? Syria, Gaza, beheadings in Iraq, a rape victim being publicly punished with lashings somewhere else--forced to marry her rapist, even!--some celebrities getting married and some other divorcing. Sometimes if feels like the media are slowly and perennially sucking satan's cock. Or God's cock. Because he killed more in the Bible, didn't he? Much more. When we are confronted by these images, when we become aware of these realities, we feel at times shocked, hope...

Ukrainian Parliament, Kyiv, 03/02/14 — in the presence of former Presidents of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko and Leonid Kravchuk. My name is Eliza Goroya and I am a member of the Greek Helsinki Monitor. I was invited here today to provide some insight as a Greek human-rights and anti-Nazi campaigner. But how is the Greek struggle relevant to the Ukrainian one? Well, we both have many angry people. And also a macho soccer culture to facilitate all this anger. People feel indignant because they have lost their trust in the political system—and for good reasons. Both Greeks and Ukrainians have   also lost their trust in the unobstructed administration of justice and the legislation process.  Both countries are facing a financial crisis and citizens feel like their country is 'being taken away from them' when the respective governments have to chose bailout options and, therefore, negotiate external influence. This naturally triggers issues of national identity, independence...

The fact that I am writing to you in English already falsifies what I wanted to tell you. My subject: how to explain to you that I don't belong to English though I belong nowhere else, if not here in English. Gustavo Pérez Firmat, Bilingual Blues: Poems