Untitled (by Mor)
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Ovaries, Shawarma and All the Good Stuff (Intro to the Zine by Hadass S. Ben-ari)
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It was basically in the Diaspora that I was exposed to third-wave feminism and the culture that comes along with it.
Your eyes are like doorknobs smeared with margarine having suffered severe regurgitation from a donkey struck by lightning.
With my Aliyah, I searched for a similar venue for feminism in the Holy Land. I began with Riot Grrrl and realized there wasn’t much of that hardcore feminist punk in Israel, if at all.
May you always dream of faded arteries struggling to swirl around tumbleweed as it straddles about dusty book shelves canonizing hallucinogens in lines devoid of all significance.
I moved on to feminism in general and noticed that Israeli women are smarter and more mature than they are given credit for and thought it was ridiculous that these women are not being heard. This is how Fallopian Falafel - אשת חיל Zine was conceived.
I seldom pray to stick marshmallows on the pointy edges of your pelvic bone articulating acute sanguinity over an impulsive bladder.
The zine is a non-profit, Jerusalem-based feminist zine. It serves mostly as a catharsis for me (for the sake of my ego and self-preservation), but also for any other woman, Israeli or not, of any religion and religiosity, to use this independent form of press and freedom of speech to her advantage.
Your jaundice reminds me of plague-inflicted tectonic plates shunting its Dark-Age professions into a highly intricate society of newspapered black holes.
The zine deals with feminism mostly in Israel, in all its forms of expression (third-wave, riot grrrl, religious movements, arts, etc.), and it aims to spread awareness about the ongoing need for feminism to the Israeli public. It is worth noting that despite its secular leftist nature, the zine is neither anti-religious nor anti-Zionist.
Voodoo fire dances remind me of hollow puppets in torn Nazi attire caught in the synthetic fibers of their own demise.
The contributors are Jews, non-Jews, women, men, from Israel and abroad, from different backgrounds in order to give the Israeli public a little bit of every aspect of feminism in hopes to create a more complete image of the movement.
In case you came across any bizarre statements in bold, please contact the editor. These statements occur when the zine is being hacked by a more stoned version of me.
That being said, enjoy the zine!
Palestinian Woman Teaches English and Peace (by Gil Zohar)
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Take a Moment (by Sarah I. Illouz)
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No Mas (by Hadass S. Ben-Ari)
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Stolen Word (by Hadass S. Ben-Ari)
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Riot and Scream (by Hadass S. Ben-Ari)
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Assets and Liabilities (by Loolwa Khazzoom)
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Lobotomy (by Hadass S. Ben-Ari)
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The Reclamation of the Term Slutt (by Jenny B. Cerridwen)
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What does slutt mean?
It means not having to explain, justify, submit or apologize for my actions
It means being able to explore, enjoy, enchant and engage with whom I want
It means screaming Bikini Kill at the highest peakand feeling deep down inside
It means acknowledging and resisting that feeling deep within me, that I have been told, taught, socialized and demoralized to believe that I am wrong, bad, drrrty or weak
It means feeling proud and strong
It means getting my rox off
It means getting mine
It means loving me for me and loving those I love for them
It means no regrets but experiences, no devaluing but growth
It means safety and responsibility
It means freedom and life
It entwines, intertwines, rejuvenates and de-suffocates
It denies labels, prejudices, patriarchal and heterosexist oppression
It creates safe spaceIt says “fuck you” to those who are so ensconced in their four walls of judgement, hatred, fear and false sanctity that they have lost their true humanity
It means lust, it means love, it means truly feeling what we have been forced to deny
It means saying no and meaning it
It means saying yes and loving it
It means creating spaces for my mind + body to explore, share, transcend and learn with another
It means not having to feel shameful, unworthy, putrid, dejected
It means no longer having to feel guilt or disgust or deny my rights in my position as a woman
It means breaking through, disrupting the political and religious doctrines, which blame, label and subjugate the woman’s body
It means loving my body for whatever shape or size it is and movement it makes
It means knowing and questioning and subverting
It means resistance in so many ways
It means choice
It means love
It’s what slutt means to me
Breaking Stereotypes (by Hadass S. Ben-Ari)
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A while back, I went to see a play called “The Fairies are Thirsty.” Originally written in French by Denise Boucher in 1978, the play is about the three stereotypes society attributes to women – a whore, a housewife and the Holy Virgin. Throughout the play, these three women describe, through alternating monologues, their pain and the suppression they feel playing their roles, and are desperately trying to break away from these stereotypes. All three of them feel their bodies and their sexuality are being suppressed by a male-dominated social order.
This social order presents them as asexual beings. The housewife is deprived of sexual pleasure because her only function in sex is to serve and satisfy her husband; the whore is deprived of it since men use her body for their pleasure and not hers; and the Virgin Mary is always covered up, no part of her body is ever exposed unless it is one of her breasts when she is depicted as breastfeeding baby Jesus.
The play also shows that the patriarchic society uses women for sex even when they are being represented as asexual beings. In a particularly controversial scene, the Virgin Mary refers to her immaculate conception of Jesus as an act of “divine” rape and she curses God for impregnating her.
Since the play was written around the time of the feminist movement, it was used as flamboyant feminist art, especially in Quebec where the play originated, and caused a stir.
However, one cannot deny the fact that these stereotypes still persist today. Whatever a woman does, she will be labeled under one of those three stereotypes. Depriving women of control over their bodies is made obvious by the enormous number of reported and unreported cases of rape in both the developed world and the developing world, as well as by the controversy about abortion rights.
There are all these various organizations fighting for women’s rights, and civil rights, and fighting racism and ethnophobia and homophobia and about an endless number of them fighting anti-Semitism. And although, theoretically, there have been some changes, can we really say that in practice – within society and the mores of a democratic state – there really is a difference between nowadays and yesterdays?
The way I see it, people’s attitudes towards various minorities can be best described by a statement made by Brian Kinney, the main character in the TV series Queer As Folk: “There are two kinds of straight people in this world - the ones who hate you to your face, and the ones who hate you behind your back.” And I think this is true not only for homosexuals but for any social group in this world. This is why we haven’t made any progress. The only steps we’ve taken which could only remotely be categorized as progress are more appropriately categorized as covertness or hypocrisy.
This is why stereotypes persist: homosexuals are still HIV-ridden fags; people of color are still drug-peddling criminals; Jews are still fat and cheap, plotting world domination; and women still serve as sex tools, succubae, baby factories and punching bags.
Democracy may have successfully made it illegal to deny the Holocaust and gave women and social minorities the right to vote. But it has unsuccessfully suppressed the voice of chauvinists, anti-Semites, bigots and homophobes in all levels of society.
If Bush spent more time on fixing up his own country and less time bombing the living shit out of other countries in the name of “Democracy,” maybe this world could be a better place and maybe the list of stereotypes society attributes to women could include “business woman,” “president,” “fighter pilot,” and “Riot Grrrl.”
Riot Incarnate (by Hadass S. Ben-Ari)
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Non-Classroom Notes (by Sue Tourkin-Komet)
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1. Freshman Year 1966-1967
{a} S.G., pronounced Ess, Gee, bragged quietly, that she
cut-out large circles in her t-shirts, so that when she
smoked pot, with other hot-shots, she flopped
her naked breasts out of their portholes for public consumption
{b} S.G., the same one, pronounced Ess, Gee, bragged proudly
that when her Daddy, a prominent gynecologist did his rounds
at Private High Schools, in nineteen-sixties, he'd circulate 5 or 6 devices
at Show & Tell “B.C.” sessions,* and he'd gladly
get back only two or three, after his lessons
2. Sophomore Year 1967-1968
{a} Getting straight A's, after I nearly
flunked out the previous semester, guaranteed me a transfer
to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
{b} I kept my detailed colored map of Israel
on my Mid-West dorm room wall, and daily, subliminally
learned all, unconsciously, and consciously, the curving roads and
few highways of my new-country-to-be
3. Junior Year 1968-1969
{a} L.G., pronounced Ell, Gee, of Michigan, had to drag me
not kickin' n' screamin', to The Kotel** 'cause
I felt too profane to pray at the Holy Places
{b.} Keeping “Kosher” in my non-Kosher pots and pans
was The Beginning, forevermore of my
keeping Kosher in my Kasher'd pots and pans
thereafter-more
4. Senior Year 1969-1970
{a} States-side, wearing pastel full pantie-hose
with a long thick mini-skirt, helped me put-off
a “rabbinical” student, with his snub-nose
he aimed to relieve me of all my clothes,
and have pulled it all off in the name of G-d-knows what--
but my ethics and my reflexes, were stronger than his
{b}Terrible, unforgivable that it happened only 40 miles away
yet to this day, Kent State Massacre
“had” to happen, for me to hasten, to pack my bags
and run back again, to The Land of my destination,
to my Homeland Nation, Jerusalem.
*B.C. Sessions = Birth Control sessions
**The Kotel = The Western Wall
Riot Grrrl Corner (Regular column on Riot Grrrl culture, by Hadass S. Ben-Ari)
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