Writing my last blog post was very difficult for me. It was a very emotional topic and I found it a mental battle to keep my thoughts and feelings in check.  Like many women, the events made me incredibly angry that, even today, we have to argue that women have the right not to be raped. It is so preposterous that we even need to discuss these issues anymore. It is disheartening.  And yet, when I finished that post, I knew my next blog post would be about hope.

You may recall an earlier post on International Women’s Day where I pondered the absence of men in events to do with women’s rights and women’s health. My musings turned out to foreshadow what would be dismal participation by men in our otherwise successful International Women’s Day events. No men showed up to a film screening on the history of Canadian feminism at the public library. No men showed up to the lecture on HIV campaigns and their (mis)representation of women by a professor of Sociology on campus.  Two men (ACG’s Executive Director and a member of our Board of Directors) showed up at our HIV & Pregnancy forum for medical & social service workers - two men, that is, out of 65 participants. And at our Women on the Bridge event, the small number of men in attendance seemed to have an organizational or political affiliation. It reinforced my feelings that somehow we are in this alone.

And so it was with some spark of hope that I began to see men respond to the issues around violence against women and rape culture as news of Steubenville infiltrated the media. There was word from Patrick Stewart. And George Takei. And Henry Rollins.

And then, of course, there were the women. The social media response to the rape culture problem has been amazing. Finally, we are seeing healthy, powerful messages broadcast through media (especially social media). For instance, the message that no woman – regardless of what she wears, what she drinks, or what she says, deserves to be raped. The message that victim blaming is not an appropriate response to rape. The message that we need to, finally, teach boys not to rape. These messages have been loud and clear – in countless campaigns, public service announcements, blog posts, you-tube videos, protests, memes and graphics. It truly gives me hope to see so much concerted effort towards this issue, and much of it youth-oriented, powerful, fresh - even fun.

But nothing has given me as much hope as the open letter by Melissa Harris-Perry.

It immediately re-shifted my focus. As a global community we have been discussing the problems with rape culture - as we should be.  But as much as we need to discuss these problems, there is something that is very good here. The young woman who was raped (and I say “young woman” because I suspect any identity of “girlhood” is gone now) had the bravery to come forward and the tenacity to persist through the god-awful trial. What she has endured will no doubt complicate her life with trauma. It will undoubtedly complicate her relationship with the world, with her body, with her relationships. But I hope she can someday see herself as someone who stood up for the rights of women worldwide. 

When women push towards their rights, they are often punished – socially, if not legally, physically, financially.  The social media smearing and shaming and the CNN coverage were evidence of this. But by going through with the trial and enduring all of it, this young woman helped to address some very serious issues and bring these issues to light.

The boys’ sentence, however mild, was still enforced, and this is a very good thing. I believe it was Emile Durkheim who theorized that the law is not a tool to enforce justice, but a tool used to solidify and reaffirm the existing moral code of a society. Using this theoretical framework, we can imagine that the boys’ sentence helps to reinforce a moral code which says women do not deserve to be raped - no matter what.

Because this young woman persevered, these issues became the catalyst to get a lot of people raising concerns about rape culture and finding new, interesting, colourful ways to change these cultural attitudes. Because of her, many new people are speaking about these issues and discussing them in different ways. It is not because of the rape itself that these positive things are happening, for rapes happen all the time. It is because she made the choice to proceed with the trial and use her voice, if only by being honest, to make a stand for women’s rights over their bodies and their lives.

Sometimes women activists don’t even realize that what they are doing is powerful and perhaps this is the case for this young woman. I hope then, that someday she can reshape her identity. Not as “slut” as so many have called her and not as “victim” either. I hope she can reshape her identity to acknowledge her strength, and her power.

From Rosa Parks, “Quiet Strength:”

I did not get on the bus to get arrested; I got on the bus to go home...  I had no idea that history was being made. I was just tired of giving in. Somehow I felt that what I did was right by standing up to that bus driver. I did not think about the consequences. I knew that I could have been lynched, manhandled, or beaten when the police came. I chose not to move. When I made that decision, I knew that I had the strength of my ancestors with me.

The short answer is, we didn’t win. But that’s misleading. There is so much more to the story.

On Friday April 5, as I whipped into the parking lot and dashed into the office, my heart was beating. It was our last chance to get the final votes.  I hadn’t slept much the night before, and thanks to a persistent cold, my throat was raw and I could barely speak.  I lit up my computer to send out last minute pleas for help through email, Facebook and Twitter, reminding anyone who cared (and probably some who did not) that we had only hours – and then minutes – left to win Canada’s Worst Charity Website.

I have been told that many of our supporters anxiously refreshed their browsers over and over again, waiting to see the final tally. What they didn’t know is that the company who hosted the contest, rTraction, was monitoring votes and would strip the final numbers of any that looked illegitimate.  We wouldn’t know the final tally until an hour later.

Both myself and Wayne have written previous posts on why this contest is important to us. We want to make our HIV prevention and support services more accessible online.  We do this work within the confines of certain barriers – including the fact that stigma, isolation (both social and geographical) make face-to-face conversations about HIV, AIDS and STIs difficult. For many hard-to-reach populations, including those who live in rural areas and those who fear stigma, discrimination or racism, a website is often a primary access point to information. For us, this was about bridging barriers.

Shortly after 1:00, our Executive Director, Tom, went into his office to answer the telephone and I knew right away the news wasn’t good.  From his office, he gave me a thumbs down.

I didn’t understand then, why he sounded so chipper. “We’re thrilled,” I heard him say a few minutes later.

When Tom gathered all the staff together for an announcement, he told us what I already suspected – we didn’t win first place. But rTraction had been so impressed with our enthusiasm and hard work, they decided to offer us a second prize that was nearly as great – a website makeover worth $15,000!

We are truly thrilled to accept this prize. The development will take place in 2014. I really look forward to having a user-friendly, responsive, and professional website.

Beyond that though, this process has been really enlightening. It’s been incredibly moving to see the kind of community involvement we’ve received. I say involvement, because it’s gone beyond the simple act of voting. Our supporters took a major role promoting the contest by sharing, tweeting, emailing, blogging, Facebooking – and plain old talking about the contest.  They designed memes. They gave free advice. One physicist friend actually wrote a computer program to help monitor and analyze the voting trends. And this support wasn’t only found in the Guelph community (although the Guelph community has been a huge source of support – including voluntary associations, social services and nonprofit organizations, the university, the Mayor and countless other organizations and individuals).  The support and involvement extended across the region, the province, the nation – even the globe! Friends spread the word in multiple languages.

We utilized social media as well as traditional media. We worked hard to get the HIV & AIDS community involved as much as possible, asking for help from as many HIV/AIDS affiliated organizations across Canada (and into the United States and beyond) to help us – and that included the fabulous PositiveLite.com blogging community!

The really cool thing is when you start to see your voters become promoters. That especially took off as our supporters learned why this contest was so important. It wasn’t just about getting a great website so that we could solicit donations. It was about making sure that life-saving information was available to people as they need it. It was about overcoming significant barriers like stigma, shame, isolation and fear.  Supporters began to learn more about us and the issues we faced, and they started to share this information with their own networks.

Here’s an example.  I saw an acquaintance – who has no affiliation with the AIDS Committee - post this on Facebook when encouraging her friends to vote:

Not only is the AIDS Committee of Guelph an organization deserving of and in need of a new website, but the nature of their work means that having a well designed site that's easy to use is extremely important as social stigma, fear and a host of other issues might mean it's their first (or only) point of contact with some individuals needing their services.

It is inspiring to see how our messages have circulated through social media, prompting individuals outside our circles to learn, share and talk about HIV.  It seems this contest has helped us raise awareness of who we are, what we do, and most importantly, the issues that we work to address every day.

More than 15,000 votes were sent in favour of the AIDS Committee of Guelph. I’m told it was a very close call – that we lost only by a hundred or so.  I also recently learned that our total was more than double the amount of the winning organization from last year.  The fact that we came so close to winning while competing against an organization based in Ottawa – a city that dwarfs Guelph in size and political power – is incredibly inspiring.  It is a testament to how much our supporters care for this agency and its cause. It also speaks to how the HIV & AIDS sector works as a family. 

With this contest we have heightened our local and global response to HIV and AIDS – and that has truly been our most important goal, regardless of winning or losing this contest.

On behalf of the staff and Board of Directors at the AIDS Committee, I would like to express their heartfelt thanks for everyone who voted and promoted the contest.  A special thank you also to rTraction, from London Ontario, for hosting Canada’s Worst Charity Website contest and congratulations to the Wild Bird Care Centre of Nepean Ontario on their win.

You may be aware that I have a “no bad news after 8pm” policy in order to keep myself sane. And yet, sometimes there is bad news that I just cannot avoid.

Last week, while relaxing into my utopian science fiction fantasy land of Star Trek the Next Generation on Blu-Ray, my social media-addicted brain craved stimulation and I grazed through Facebook updates on my phone.  Hmm let’s see… cute baby pictures, cute puppies, cupcakes someone baked, and oh, what’s this? Some teenage boys drugged and repeatedly raped a 16 year old girl, took pictures and videos of the assault, and finally dumped her on someone’s lawn. After many efforts to conceal and defend the assault (because football players should, apparently, be allow to rape anyone they determine to be a ‘slut’) CNN decided the sentence was worthy of national news coverage. Not because it was a terrible crime. Because the poor rapists got a whole year of prison and were labeled sex offenders, and this, CNN complained, is a charge that will “haunt them the rest of their lives.”

First I read this wonderfully written article on Feministing that captured the multiplicity of problems to do with this case, from the fact that the boys did not believe that what they were doing was rape because it was not “violent” (she was incapable of fighting back,) to the fact that the girl was portrayed as a slut on trial in order to defend the boy’s right to rape her, to the fact that twitter was awash with sentiments that the girl who was not raped, she was just “a loose drunk slut”.  The article drove home the point that what we’re dealing here is a rape culture that endorses violence against women. It endorses rape.

As much as it’s easy to point fingers at an individual level when it comes to perpetrators of crime, we need to take a step back and consider what sociological factors are involved. And nothing drives home the point more than that stupid CNN video. There’s not a whole lot that needs to be said about it because it is so overt. Watch in horror as CNN glorifies the rapists and their promising careers. Apparently, CNN decided that boys getting an entire year of prison and being labeled as a sex offender for raping a girl was worthy of national news coverage. This wasn’t newsworthy because they didn’t get enough time. It was newsworthy because, in the eyes of CNN, they got too much.

Anyone looking for proof that women’s lives and bodies are worth less than men’s, even in 2013 and even in America, there you have it. The biggest news station in the United States argues that boys should be allowed to rape girls and not be punished for it.

If CNN isn’t an example of how media contributes to rape culture I don’t know what is.

It is ironic, I thought, that when we talk about the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure, we need to argue that someone with HIV who uses a condom but doesn’t disclose their status in a single sexual encounter - which does not result in transmission - does not deserve to be convicted for aggravated sexual assault, with a maximum sentence of 14 years. It’s amazing how people resist this premise, even we are talking about consensual sex between two adults. Yet in the case of rape, in which consensus is non-existent, and the intent to humiliate and violate is wholly present, it’s national news that the perpetrators received a whole year in prison.  

We need to talk about these issues in the whole context of women’s equality issues, not in silos. The issue is bigger than Steubenville. Violence against women is a problem around the world, and that includes all forms of violence.  Legally, politically, and economically women do not have the same rights as men. Not only in other far away lands. Here. Not 60 years ago. Today.

I don’t want to blame the media, because the media is only one part of this. But it certainly contributes to rape culture, there’s no denying that. Some of these issues are challenging to deal with. For instance, the media glamorizes drug facilitated sexual assault, and not just CNN. There are so many examples in movies and television in which male violence, in general, is present, and many instances in which men lie, use alcohol, or manipulate women into having sex with them.  (Not to mention rape, kidnap, dismember and kill them). Even though rape is about power, not sex, the media contributes to the idea that male desire for sex is natural and should override a woman’s sense of power over her own body.

In the Feministing article, the author, Maya, writes:

I don’t want to live in a world that assumes guys are naturally sexual aggressors who will opportunistically take advantage of an incapacitated girl, or forever push, push, push at the boundaries of consent until they hear a clear and forceful “no.” I want to live in a world that gives boys more credit than that.

Although this would far from solve the problem, I believe that sex education needs to include an education about what consent actually means and how important it is. It seems so obvious that sex education should include this component but it’s absent. The “no means no” language is so limited that the rapists involved in this case, apparently didn’t even realize they were doing something wrong.  

This blog starts and ends with Patrick Stewart because, earlier in the day, before I learned about the trial, I read an interview with Patrick Stewart on his initiatives to end violence against women. One of the questions asked, do you think we also need to take a closer look at the messages we're sending to boys?

Stewart answered:

Absolutely. Most certainly…. We talk to our children in ways they will understand about morality, about honesty. We tell them that it's not good to lie and it's not good to be deceitful. But I think we rarely have spoken to them about the proper elements of the relationship between a male and a female, a young boy and a young girl. And I look back to my childhood and from quite an early age, my recollection is that the girls that I knew were either desirable, sexual objects or were potential victims - you know, people you could persecute, and it was okay to do that. And so I think in the same way that in our schools things like sex education have now become standard and normal and entirely acceptable, if lessons can be learned about how to be in the world, how to be in society and treat everyone with the same measure of respect.

Thank you to Patrick Stewart. My next blog post will be about hope.

The AIDS Committee of Guelph & Wellington County is currently entered in a contest to win Canada’s Worst Charity Website. It’s a self-deprecating title for sure but one that we’re more than willing to accept. Why? Because this is a contest that awards the winner with a $20,000 website makeover.

One of the reasons we’re so eager to win this opportunity is because we know how important a good website is to the population we serve. A lot of people access health information online. Especially information about HIV. Let’s face it, it takes a lot of courage to have a frank, open discussion about sex – and especially about HIV, STIs and unprotected sex. This is even more so considering how many different types of sex are stigmatized or considered socially deviant thanks to homophobia, sexism, and, in my opinion, narrow definitions of what is considered to be normal, healthy, sexual behaviour. Our sexual practices are a lot more diverse that we openly admit, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t need access to information about risk and HIV. 

We also know that more and more people are accessing websites through their phone or mobile devices. This is one of the reasons we created the iPhone app. We want to help people get the information they need when they want it, how they want it. To us, this is part of meeting people where they’re at, and part of being accessible. Getting access to information on a mobile device can be really useful, for instance, if you are in the middle of sexual decision making, negotiating safer sex, or trying to determine where to get tested. Mobile devices are really helpful because they are just that – mobile. We’d love to have a website that is friendly to mobile devices.

Our funds go where they are intended and where they are most deserving – to programming for people living with, affected by, and at risk to HIV & AIDS. We simply don’t have the funds to spend on web design, something that could be considered an “overhead” cost. But at the same time, we really believe that a great website would have an important educational benefit, and we’ve been excited about the prospect of being able to make it happen.

Our biggest competition right now seems to be the Ferret Aid Society and the Wild Bird Care Centre. Please vote for us! You can vote once a day, every day until April 5 at www.worstcharitywebsite.ca. Just head to the website and then click “vote” under ACG. Thank you for your help!

International Women’s Day feels a little like World AIDS Day, in that it is a mixed message; it’s about recognizing where we’ve been, appreciating where we are today, and considering how much more there is to be done. It’s at once a celebration and a call for action.

Sometimes people send out messages on International Women’s Day about celebrating the women in your life. For me, the day is not about loving, appreciating or celebrating women in my life. It’s about change. It’s about taking an honest look at how close we are to achieving, as the United Nations says, “equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities.” That means acknowledging some painful realities about the unique challenges women face, both around the world and right here at home.  This includes – for example -  gendered distinctions in levels of poverty, political power, wages/salary, sexual assault, and all forms of violence.

My hope is that this year, more men participate in International Women’s Day events. I’m never quite sure why men exclude themselves from events or initiatives that seek to address issues that are women-specific.  Maybe it’s because women need, at times, to have certain women-only events, such as “Take Back the Night” (although this too is changing.) However, more often than not, men are welcomed and encouraged to take part in women’s events.  At the Guelph-Wellington Women’s Health Alliance forum last year, which addressed barriers to women accessing services in the community, the only man who attended (someone from ACG, I’m proud to say) received a standing ovation.

I find it disheartening. Why shouldn’t men care about these issues? After all, women are not a “niche”. We occupy more than half of the population.

Even in the HIV landscape, women in Ontario (as of 2009) occupy 26% of all people living with HIV and 18% of new infections.  Many of us who dedicate our lives to the health, wellbeing and rights of people living with HIV are HIV-negative. Many of us who work to challenge homophobia are straight. (Myself included on both accounts). We don’t have to be directly impacted by gender discrimination or inequality in order to be affected by it or to want to challenge it. Our gender should not dictate our desire to create a world in which both genders equally thrive.   As Martin Luther King Jr., said “a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” 

On December 6, I took a quick scan on my Facebook page and saw that countless women friends had shared posts that honoured the victims of the Montreal Massacre and the meaning of that event.  I saw only two posts by men.  Both men belonged to the LGBTQ community, and I wondered if that meant they could relate more to the experience of violence or fear of violence based on gender norms.

I don’t want to use a silly Facebook anecdote to make sweeping generalizations, but I noticed, and it hurt. Why didn’t any of my straight man friends commemorate the Montreal Massacre victims?

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is “Gaining Momentum”. It ties into HIV & AIDS perfectly. We now have a greater repertoire of tools to fight HIV than ever before. We have more knowledge than ever before. And after years of disappointments, there is renewed hope of finding both a cure and a vaccine.  We have the momentum and need to keep up the work, keep moving towards the goal.  We have momentum in gender equality too, but achieving equality requires the participation of all genders.

As a worker in the field of HIV & AIDS, you often find yourself telling people what to do, or what not to do, and it’s not always true that you can follow your own advice. Others have written about the fact that when it comes to safe sex, workers are not perfect. After all, education is not the only factor that goes into sexual decision-making, and sexual health educators are real people with real lives (and sex lives, I might add). Similarly, I sometimes find myself making decisions around my own health care that may sharply contrast from the advice I might give someone living with HIV.

I live with a chronic auto-immune disease myself, and though it differs significantly from HIV in many ways, I can often relate to fears as well as the seemingly irrational choices that people living with HIV sometimes make about their health.

I will share an example that brought this to mind recently. Every year I have to attend a day-long check-up at a hospital in Toronto that involves stacks of paperwork (where I rate my pain levels), vial after vial of blood work, awkward poses and measurements in various positions, and hours of x-rays taken in compromising positions while naked under a gown. (If the x-rays go through skin, why do I have to be naked, is it just to make the patient feel extra humiliated?) The worst part of the visit is not trying to find reasonably priced parking near a Toronto hospital (impossible) or even wondering if the x-ray technologist guy is looking at my nipples through my gown. It’s actually the fears that accompany being forced to consider my life with a disease that is expected to worsen throughout my lifetime.

Here’s where the similarity to HIV kicks in. I kind of ignore my disease right now because at the moment it’s not impacting me so much.

I once went through a period of debilitating and nearly incapacitating pain, but since that phase has passed, I’ve moved and have been able to live a normal life again. My health gives me permission to ignore it, and if I’m brutally honest with myself, maybe ignore parts of my health care that are probably important to ongoing maintenance and management of the disease.  When I go to the hospital though, I come face to face with the reality of the disease. It makes me confront the steps that I should be taking but I’m not. It makes me wonder and worry about my future. It makes me think about the time in my life when my disease was active and I was really miserable. It makes me worry about whether I’ll have a hard time accessing affordable health insurance, even if my disease may not be a problem for me in the years ahead. My good health now makes me question the diagnosis in the first place, and wonder if perhaps it was a misdiagnosis; I contemplate whether I should ask the doctor. 

Today I cancelled my appointment. I used the excuse that I am taking a few weeks off for holidays and when I come back to work I won’t have the time to take another full-day off work. But part of the reason of why I cancelled it also had to do with the fact that I’ve been noticing more pain and more issues lately, and don’t want to go to the doctor when I feel this way. It’s much more encouraging to go when I’m doing well, and can fill out my pain charts more optimistically and score better on the measurements.  Last year my appointment went really well. I kind of want to wait to go to another appointment when the awkwardness and fear of the entire situation is offset by improvements in flexibility or pain levels.

Today I thought, “this is why people with HIV don’t go to their doctors appointments when their counts are low; this is why people disappear from the clinic when they’re not doing well.”

The irony is that when people don’t access our services, it sometimes means they could use our help more than ever, that they’re really struggling but don’t want to have to deal with the fear, shame or negative feelings that will be brought up by the visit.

My January appointment has been moved to mid-March.