Helem and the Weapons of Patriarchy

Helem, the Lebanese NGO for the protection of LGBTIQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, and Queer), was founded in 2004. Since its inception its main targets have been to eliminate Lebanese Penal Code article 534 (which states that “unnatural sexual intercourse” is punishable by up to one year imprisonment), raise awareness on homosexuality by opening up dialogue with the public, raise awareness on HIV/AIDS and STIs among LGBTs and to place the sexual health concerns of sexual minorities on the agendas of policy-makers and health practitioners, and to create a safe space for members of the LGBTIQ community.

 

Two months ago an argument broke out in Helem. Ultimately, this argument led to several activists revoking their membership and a still unresolved cease fire between those awaiting accountability and those who believe to be immune to answering for their actions. I expect many will criticize this piece as an attempt to reopen old wounds. The fact of the matter is that we, the activist community, have become too accustomed to sweeping our problems under the carpet and hoping they will disappear. We have all run from accountability and created an atmosphere that not only allows but even encourages character assassination and the use of scare tactics and shaming as valid and acceptable tools of silencing critical opposition. I hope in this piece to expand on the use of these tactics using my personal experience as an example.

 

After having successfully hosted the 5th IDAHO (International Day Against Homophobia) event, the active Helem membership, which had fifty-one members at the time, reacted badly to a well-founded criticism of Helem’s LGBT magazine Barra. The criticism was about Barra’s unimaginative promotional video that featured a gay man walking out of a closet. Many members of Helem replied to this criticism by name-calling the critic an ‘angry lesbian’ ‘manhater’ and other sexist remarks, completely blind to the possibility of giving the criticism any validity. I sent an email to their listserv congratulating them on a successful IDAHO but also pointing out my problem with sexism in Helem and giving, as an example, the many instances where I had been sexually harassed with no real management of the issue. One of the many instances of this included having my breasts grabbed while I was speaking in the middle of a Helem member meeting. My email was met with a systematic attack by male members of the organization, some of which are or were board members, accusing me of male entrapment, belittling my complaint of sexual harassment, and at one point suggesting we, women who feel sexually harassed, “complain to the police”. Apart from that being an antagonizing statement to belittle claims of sexism and harassment, it is a well-known fact that sexual harassment is not taken seriously by the police or patriarchal system that we know to be sexist and homophobic in Lebanon. Helem’s responsibility is to ensure safety for their members (this includes women), however, Helem’s administration did nothing to create a safe space for women or stop the blatant attacks on my character. In fact, except for one member of the NGO’s administration/staff, the rest either partook in the sexist slander or remained silent. This lead to the resignation of several members that was seen with pride by some of the membership as a ‘victory’ that kicked out the ‘terrorists’.

 

 

The main aim of character assassination is to redirect attention away from the issue by discrediting the individual who brought it up by portraying them as thoughtless, reckless, incompetent, etc. The convenience of this tactic comes from the fact that the person using it doesn’t need to engage with the criticism itself but merely dismiss it based on a well-built stereotype of the accuser.

 

When applied to the left-wing queer activists, this comes in the form of certain members in the community building a stereotype of the “evil radical leftist terrorists” that seek to “destroy us”, plan to “stop our progress” and thrives on “discontent, division, anger and hatred”. This is used to discredit those who are accused of ‘ruining’ the movement as opposed to those who are trying to portray themselves as ‘building’ it. If any of this sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’ve been keeping up with US rhetoric towards the Middle East.

 

The word ‘radical’ has been given a negative connotation unrelated to its definition to discredit critical opinions. It’s been used to mean “extremist”, “unrelenting”, “thoughtless”, “biased” and “evil” as opposed to a political stance that doesn’t seek to conform to the heteronormative patriarchal system but to destabilize it.

 

When applied to queer women, character assassination rears its ugly head in time-honored ways. Queer women are ‘irrational angry lesbians’ instead of women pissed off with the level of oppression, sexual harassment and objectification they have to deal with on a daily basis, from Lebanon at large and from its shamelessly sexist ‘gay community’ in particular. Queer women are ‘man-haters’ instead of disagreeing with the politics of gay men who refuse to acknowledge their institutional privilege. Interestingly, ‘man-hater’ isn’t just used about politics, but lies in the belief that queer women have a problem with men for being men, a slur that attacks their sexual orientation. The underlying belief is that women sleep with other women because they hate men, not because they like women.

 

Queer women are also stereotyped by the public (and frequently by gay male activists and non-activists) as ‘unhygienic’, ‘dirty’, ‘ugly’ and ‘disgusting’ because some of them don’t conform to the image of the “respectable woman.”  They are also called ‘hormonal’, as in- “what, do u have your period? Is that why you are not agreeing with everything I say?” yes, ‘hormonal’.

 

This is one of the ways that activists run away from facing criticism, hide accountability, and refuse to consider opposing arguments.

 

Within the Helem mailing list discussions, there was a continual use of shaming as an integral tactic of character assassination. One definition of shaming/victim blaming within gender oppressive situations has been framed as “blaming the victim or others who call for accountability when gender oppression as an issue or a situation of gender oppression arises. This blaming the victim or allies is often combined with denial and minimizing.”[1] In the case of Helem, my sex-positive attitude and behavior was used to justify sexual harassment and slut shame me into being compliant with the situation at hand.   Shaming an individual for their personal behavior in order to silence and therefore ‘win’ the point by default has been a reoccurrence for several years in the process of shaping activist spaces in Lebanon. An example of this is how an active female member, with strong political opinions, was shamed in Helem for her attire, body weight, as well as physical presentation. After being shamed for several years, she finally left Helem having her physical appearance discussed more than her critical social and political stances on issues pertaining to sexual and bodily rights and the intersectionality between social causes within the larger framework of politics in Lebanon.

 

After I emailed the listserv I received many replies, mainly attacking my character or private and consensual behavior. A snippet from one board member’s email replying to me included, “On the other hand, I wish for u to state clearly if you have been sexually harassed by Helem male members, grabbing your breast as u mentioned, if that happened I wish for you to send me an email with names because sexual harassment is not acceptable. But also to be fair, I’ve witnessed a couple of incidents when you willingly (and with a large smile) took male members aside to show them (i dnt know if touching was included) ur breasts since some of them didn’t see ones before”. Allow me to break down that statement, ‘I as someone who holds a position of power can be trusted, you should have reported this (author’s note: I had reported it several times and little was done about it), but you’re a slut.’  Such statements are used throughout the world to delegitimize claims of sexism and sexual harassment and frame the victim of ‘male entrapment’ and slandering.

 

Furthermore, a prominent member of the community was quoted in a chat saying “it is frustrating when Amar tells the guys to put their fingers in her vagina and then uses it against them”. Instead of investigating my claim of sexual harassment within Helem, my personal and private consensual sexual behavior was used in order to justify its presence within this organization’s space (Hello rape analogies!).  What followed was a systematic counter-organizing by several male members to play down the situation, divert attention elsewhere, and viciously attack my reputation, as well as threats to silence outspoken activists (ex: attacking their jobs) for making this issue public. Shaming tactics using my sexuality were revealed to be  an acceptable form of debate.

 

The ripple effect of such statements was clear when, a month later, the same prominent member used a public figure’s (Joe Maalouf) sexuality in order to discredit his unlawful actions towards the LGBT community.  Joe Maalouf’s show on MTV Lebanon, “Enta Horr” (which translates to ‘You Are Free”) has been on a rampage to attack minority/ostracized communities within mainly under-privileged areas across Lebanon. Joe Maalouf’s latest incident was when his show ‘uncovered’ a porn cinema in Nabaa, Lebanon as a hub for gay sex. Thirty six men were arrested and subjected to anal examinations in order to prove or disprove their homosexuality. Like Joe Maalouf, this leader in the LGBT community used shaming tactics to teach him a lesson. He publicly (with full knowledge of the consequences of outing), outed him as a gay man, shamed him as the ‘gay’ against the gay community, and by this, encouraged a violent atmosphere that attacked him for the wrong reasons. What followed was an outstanding support of outing (a subject that the LGBTQ community has recognized as dangerous and worked against for years), shaming an individual for their sexual preferences and lifestyle, using sexual orientation to slander an individual’s reputation, and inciting violence as an ‘acceptable’ approach in our discourse. I am in no way defending Joe Maalouf or MTV Lebanon’s continuous attacks on these communities or groups of people; I am merely critiquing the LGBT community’s justification in using sexuality as a means of silencing rather than challenging.

 

 

Over the years, there have been countless incidents that have required individuals and organizations to be held accountable for their actions. Unfortunately, unerringly like the macro-political/social state of affairs in Lebanon, the micro-political/social communities and leaders are rarely, if ever, held accountable. Accountability isn’t about punishment or reprimanding those that stand at fault but rather about realizing and accepting where one was at fault, acknowledging the damage their words/actions have done to an individual or a movement, and recognizing that without being held accountable they encourage or further normalize a system of violence and gender oppression and cause more damage to those affected by the particular situation.

 

Only towards the very end of the debacle on the Helem mailing list did one board member send a public apology taking full accountability for his words and the damage that was done. Aside from that, the majority of Helem members stayed silent and those that did react either left the organization (seven out of fifty one members) or supported those that used their male privilege within the organization to oppress and shame me. This is not counting of course the countless women who have left Helem over the years due to some form of sexism or sexual harassment that occurred and were left with no one held accountable.

 

As with all previous instances of organization-splitting arguments, the immediate reaction by most of those involved was to sweep it all under a carpet and pretend it never happened. This was done, first of all, by framing it as a ‘personal argument’ that, apparently, does not reflect negatively on the politics of the organization as a whole. Secondly, there was shameless pride from some of the members and key people in the organization and community in having ‘defeated’ the ‘evil terrorists’ by shaming them into leaving. Thirdly, after this event and during Helem’s general assembly, the same members who participated in sexist slander suddenly started speaking about ‘women’s rights’ and about how making a ‘safe space for women should become a priority for Helem. Those same people refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing or apologize for their hurtful and misogynist remarks and actions, and continued to slander women who spoke up not just in Lebanon, but regionally. While they might think that saying tokenistic phrases about women’s rights may shield them from criticism, it is their actual actions that count and that show otherwise. What a classic example of Orwellian doublespeak!

 

 

In reviewing the history of Helem, we see an undeniable trend of gender based discrimination that has thus far gone unaddressed. The reasons for it are usually made to ‘outside factors’ that is out of the organization’s control. A common example of this is the continuous assumption that many women usually do not join Helem based on rumors that Helem is a male-only organization. The fact is that Helem has historically had a gay male majority and a female minority. This has resulted in a discourse that is gay-male oriented and projects that mostly focus on issues that gay men struggle with, without the same attention to their female counterpart. In effect, women’s voices have been silenced by a structural mechanism that yields to the organization’s majority, men.

 

Within this structure of Helem, there is a recurrence and complete denial towards gender-based violence within their meetings and work. Gender violence exists within the framework of many other forms of oppression such as white supremacy, colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, and amusingly enough, homophobia. Gender violence and oppression stems from our conditioning and is difficult to tackle especially while working in activist spaces that are assumed to be safe spaces. I am sure that many deny the fact that gender based discrimination and violence exists within Helem, however unfortunately all one has to do is record the alarming number of women who have either left the organization because of gender based violence/harassment or have stayed away from the organization because of the amount of women who have complained about having been made victims of the patriarchy that pervades Helem.

 

So far, there is little evidence that this issue has been taken seriously and has effected any change. In fact it seems like just another case that’s being swept under the carpet. Pending real accountability, I hope that activists and organizations learn to self – critique their work and methods, accept constructive criticism as a gateway for improvement, and review issues that arise with an awareness of male privilege and gender oppression that is known to take place in male dominated spaces.

 

I would like to clarify that I am writing this not to punish or reprimand Helem or anyone in particular. Using Helem as an example, this piece is for all of us to recognize the weight of our words, the damage/trauma they may cause, and the need to be responsible, thoughtful, and accountable for our actions.

 

Contributor: Anthony Rizk

 

[1] “COMMUNITY ACCOUNTABILITY WITHIN THE PEOPLE OF COLOR PROGRESSIVE\MOVEMENT”, Selections from the 2005 Report from INCITE!  Women of Color Against Violence

 

Source: http://nfasharte.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/helem-and-the-weapons-of-patriarchy/