by Tina Godby-Ware, RN Otero/Lincoln Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program

The goal of sexual health promotion is to foster healthy relationships and comfort with sexuality. It is based on the premise that adults who are comfortable with their sexuality and at ease with open discussion of sexual issues will create a family environment that supports healthy sexual behavior and responsible sexual choices. Healthy sexuality is based on respect, value, honesty, and joy.

But first, we must work diligently to challenge the institutions and practices that uphold male domination, the powerlessness of children, the turning of sexuality into a commodity, and the glorification of violence and exploration of fellow human beings. Every two minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. Only 83 percent of victims ever report this crime, with a large majority never telling anyone, allowing this silent epidemic to multiply and explode. The literature states that sexual violence is perhaps the most insidious manifestation of patriarchy, because it involves the corruption and distortion of that which is fundamental to our existence; our sexuality.

We are taught every other part of the amazing human body except in the unmentionable area—“down there.” This leaves us unprotected and vulnerable. Women developed a deep anger as the truth of violence against the female body was revealed—in the form of rape, childhood sexual abuse, anti-lesbian violence, physical abuse, sexual harassment, terrorism against reproductive freedom, or the international crime of female genital mutilation.

The pervasive belief that sexuality is derived from a weakness in humanity promotes the detachment of sexuality from self. This pervasive cultural norm shames us out of accepting and/or embracing our sexuality as a positive part of our own humanity. Thus sexuality exists on a foundation of relatively rigid and well-enforced ideas about gender. Males learn that their sexuality is characterized by action, control, and achievement, making it a game that man’s worth is to be judged according to the ability to play this game.  Females are taught that their sexuality involves learning how to balance being a “good girl” with pleasing men.

The Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Program along with NMSU-Alamogordo, Peace and Justice of La Luz, COPE, and other community citizens have joined forces to locally direct, produce, and act in Eve Ensler’s award winning masterpiece The Vagina Monologues. The Vagina Monologues give voice to women’s deepest fantasies and fears bringing the hidden experiences into the open, naming them, and turning rage into positive action. It is witty and irreverent, compassionate and wise. The Vagina Monologues has been performed in cities all across America and at hundreds of college campuses. It has been translated into over 24 different languages, and has inspired a dynamic grassroots movement—V-Day—to stop violence against women. The V-Day movement is growing at a rapid pace throughout the world, in 130 countries from Europe to Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, and all of North America.

The Vagina Monologues is the truth-telling that our bodies are sacred.  With the help of outrageous voices and honest words, the grandmothers, mothers, and daughters of the future will heal their selves—and mend the world. Eve Ensler believes that nothing is more important than stopping violence toward women. The desecration of women indicates the failure of human beings to honor and protect all life and if we do not correct it, it will be the end of us all.

It will be difficult to encourage people to overhaul their experience of sexuality through a lens of well-being, rather than a lens of shame, fear, and power. Doing so directly confronts our culture’s unhealthy sexual status quo, and therefore threatens to upset the numerous interests that benefit from it. Those of us that want to positively redefine this status quo will need to forge alliances in order to surmount these formidable barriers to change. Join us in the global movement to change the story of women and end the violence.

The Vagina Monologues

Rohovec Performing Arts Center NMSU-Alamogordo campus

February 6 at 7:30 pm

February 7 at 2:00 pm

Tickets $5 at the door or at the COPE office 909 South Florida in Alamogordo

Link

Sky Yates (J.R. Oppenheim ADN)

Alamogordo Daily News
By Elva K. Österreich, Associate News Editor
04/07/2009

In an event designed to affirm the freedom of everyone in the community to not be sexually assaulted, the Take Back the Night Committee had more than 300 people marching in the sandy, windy evening of April 4.

With exhibits and events beginning at 5 p.m. Saturday at the Tays Special Events Center, Take Back the Night offered 16 information tables, a self defense workshop, an art show and a poetry slam as precursors to a rally and march.

“For as crummy a weather as we had, I think the attendance was fabulous,” said Tina Godby-Ware, one of the organizers and a coordinator for the local Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner program. “I am thrilled with the response.”

The film, V Day Until the Violence Stops, will be shown twice on Saturday, Jan. 17, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the New Mexico State University-Alamogordo campus in the Technical Education (Pro-Tech) Building, Room 128. (NE side of campus) The subject is how people are working to end violence, reclaim peace, and to celebrate women’s sexuality and strength. Admission is free!

Peace and Justice of La Luz (Pajoll) proudly supports 2009 events to help celebrate women, their strength and their sexuality.  Pajoll is part of Otero County’s Take Back the Night Committee, bringing a controversial documentary film to Alamogordo to share with community members.

Water Privatization Overview

A worldwide crisis over water is brewing. According to the United Nations, 31 countries are now facing water scarcity and 1 billion people lack access clean drinking water. Water consumption is doubling every 20 years and yet at the same time, water sources are rapidly being polluted, depleted, diverted and exploited by corporate interests ranging from industrial agriculture and manufacturing to electricity production and mining. The World Bank predicts that by 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population will suffer from lack of clean and safe drinking water.

Rather than taking the dramatic action necessary to protect precious water resources, governments around the world are retreating from their responsibilities. Instead of acting decisively, they are bending to the will of giant transnational corporations that are poised to profit from the shortage of water. Fortune magazine has predicted that “water is the oil of the 21 century” and corporations are rushing to invest in the water business.

Giant water, energy, food, and shipping companies have plans to buy water rights, privatize publicly owned water systems, promote bottled water, and sell “bulk” water by transporting it from water rich areas to markets desperate for more water. At the same time, to ensure maximum profits, these companies are lobbying to weaken water quality standards, and pushing for tradeagreements that hand over the U.S. water resources to foreign corporations.

Right here in the United States, where some regions are already suffering from serious water shortages, corporations from Vivendi to Nestle are poised to make a profit on water. Some corporate interests even want to sell bulk water from the Great Lakes, the world’s largest freshwater system. The Great Lakes have suffered from pollution, lost two-thirds of their extensive wetlands and experienced a catastrophic loss of biological diversity. Only 3% of the shorelines are suitable for swimming.

Water resources in Wisconsin and Michigan have been targeted by giant bottled water companies like Perrier. Selling bottled water is one of the most successful revenue generating schemes for private corporations. As drinking water has been degraded, the bottled water industry is promoting its expensive product as the solution.

Unfortunately, bottled water is not adequately regulated, and tap water is actually subject to more rigorous testing and safety standards. A 1999 study of bottled water found that bottled water is no safer than tap wader, and sometimes is less safe. Meanwhile, companies like Coca-Cola are selling purified tap water as a healthy option, and they believe that in the long run selling water will be more profitable than selling Coke.

• Why oppose privatization of water? Water privatization can foster corruption and result in rate hikes, inadequate customer service and a loss of local control and accountability.
• Who are the major water companies? A handful of global corporations, ranking among Fortune’s Global 500 List and backed by the World Bank, are pushing governments to privatize water services and market water from the global commons.
• The U.S. Water Declaration: The declaration reaffirms that water is a common good that should not be privatized, commodified, or exported for profit. Add your organization!
• Turning Up the Tap: How the Private Water Industry Wants to Boost Profits – At the Expense of Taxpayers (pdf)
• Water Privatization Fiascos: Broken Promises and Social Turmoil (pdf)

NORML One in seven public school districts randomly drug tests their student body, according to survey data published this month in the American Journal of Public Health. The percentage is approximately 50 percent higher the total number of schools that reported performing suspicionless drug testing five years ago.

Among the schools that employ random drug testing, 93 percent test student athletes, while 65 percent test students who engage in extracurricular activities – a practice that was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2002 in a 5-4 decision.

Twenty-nine percent of school districts that perform drug testing impose it upon the entire student body, a practice that extends “beyond current Supreme Court sanctions.”

Last year the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on School Health resolved, “There is little evidence of the effectiveness of school-based drug testing,” and warned that students subjected to random testing programs may experience “an increase in known risk factors for drug use.” The Academy also warned that school-based drug testing programs could decrease student involvement in extracurricular activities and undermine trust between pupils and educators.

By Linda Henderson
Published March 18, 2007
in The Peace Alliance

Linda is Michigan State Coordinator for the Department of Peace Campaign. She wrote this column for the Lansing State Journal.

The World Health Organization says we spend $300 billion a year due to interpersonal violence in this country alone. More than $400 billion is spent on the Pentagon each year, with an additional $500 billion spent on the present conflagration we have pre-empted our way into internationally.

It is time for a level of maturity in ourselves and our government that reflects a deeper, more responsible wisdom. We need to quit reacting to our fears and become proactive in our desire to effectuate a safe and secure environment.

That does not come from the military or police, which, by definition, are reactionary forces. It comes from a mutual respect for the social contract human beings enter into in order to live in peace with each other, regardless of our differences.

Sadly, violence prevention is the least emphasized and least taught principle in our schools and throughout society. We do have some ad hoc programs, as long as the grant money does not run out. But we continue to put our tax money on the wrong end of the equation.

We complain about taxes, cut programming and then complain that government did not respond properly to the tragedies that ensue from the abandonment of those very programs. This is nothing less than insane.

We grieve the loss of our dear friend Bob. The knowledge that Robert Busby was killed by a homeless person with substance abuse problems shot a flare in the night sky of this violence. Why was Robert in the position of trying to address this issue when it ought to be the business of the entire community to address the desperation of those lost among us?

This is not to excuse the violence, but to attempt to address it in a meaningful and effectual way – on the front end.

While our governor is right to look to address the present budget crisis by early release of non-violent prisoners, and at the same time attempting to turn our state into a knowledge-based economy through addressing educational needs, we need to go further.

We would be wise to pay whatever taxes, volunteer whatever time, and create and support whatever government programs that begin with addressing poverty, mental and physical health issues (including substance abuse), raising the bar on educational equity and institutionalizing the systematic learning of nonviolent conflict resolution throughout the public education system.

Do not tell me violence and war are the inevitable results of human nature. Humans are a species of free will. It is time to evolve, not because it’s a “feel-good” idea, but because we can no longer afford not to and survive.

I know a wise woman who has so aptly put the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you … because they will.” It is not charity, it is self-preservation.