doyle street greenway, emeryville.
women + family bike-friendly.
Source: twitter.com
new york city.
Source: Flickr / gregraisman
shibuya, tokyo.
Source: Flickr / tohru_nishimura
“these women are changing who gets to ride—one custom bike frame at a time: meet 6 independent bicycle builders who are pushing the industry to reflect everyone who loves to ride.”
read more: bicycling, 10.04.2021
Source: bicycling.com
rue saint-denis, montreal.
Source: Flickr / zvileve
pedalpalooza kick-off ride, portland. 01.06.2021.
Source: Flickr / bikeportland
Convincing women that we can protect ourselves by following some arbitrary set of rules doesn’t stop us from getting assaulted or killed. What it does do, however, is ensure that women continue being rule-followers.
The lie that rules will save us means that women willingly forgo public spaces that men can access without fear. It means that we spend time and energy thinking about what we wear and where we’re walking, who we’re hanging out with and how we present ourselves.
If we want to curb sexual assault and violence against women, we need to stop following the rules—or at the very least, stop believing that they’ll protect us. Because while it’s seductive to believe that we have some measure of control over whether or not we’re attacked, the truth is that it’s only men who can stop rape.
The real question is: Do they want to?
jessica valenti, 15.03.2021.
sarah everard.
red canary song’s statement on the atlanta spa shootings.
red canary song is a a grassroots collective of asian & migrant sex workers, organizing transnationally. if you can, please donate.
read more: “anti-asian violence is consistently directed at women.” gq, 18.03.21. “killing people because of ‘sex addiction’ isn’t a thing.” vice, 18.03.2021. “how racism and sexism intertwine to torment asian-american women.” nytimes, 18.03.21.
Source: instagram.com
demonstrators rally in los angeles against a spike in violence toward asian-americans, 13.03.2021. photo: ringo chiu
read more: “anti-asian violence is consistently directed at women.” gq, 18.03.21. “killing people because of ‘sex addiction’ isn’t a thing.” vice, 18.03.2021. “how racism and sexism intertwine to torment asian-american women.” nytimes, 18.03.21.
demonstrators rally in los angeles against a spike in violence toward asian-americans, 13.03.2021. photo: ringo chiu
read more: “anti-asian violence is consistently directed at women.” gq, 18.03.21. “killing people because of ‘sex addiction’ isn’t a thing.” vice, 18.03.2021. “how racism and sexism intertwine to torment asian-american women.” nytimes, 18.03.21.
“On Tuesday night, a 21-year-old man named Robert Aaron Long allegedly went on a deadly rampage at three Atlanta spas, killing eight people, including six Asian women. Long’s shooting spree, police say, began at Youngs Asian Massage Parlor on the city’s outskirts, where he killed four people, two of whom were Asian, and injured one; he then allegedly fled the scene and proceeded to Gold Spa, killing three more people, all Asian women; and then he entered a spa right across the street, Aromatherapy Spa, where he killed his final victim.
Though it is not yet known whether any of the victims of Tuesday’s shooting provided sexual services at their workplaces, Long told police that the spas he opened fire on represented a “temptation he wanted to eliminate”, suggesting that he at least believed that they did. Advocates say this reveals the way racism, sexism and anti-sex-work sentiment work together to produce anti-Asian violence: no matter what, they say, his crime was ultimately one against sex workers.
“Even if they were providing non-sexual massages, this ends up being a sex work issue,” said Esther K, a co-director of Red Canary Song, which describes itself as being “the only grassroots Chinese massage parlor worker coalition in the US” and also as organizing “with Asian sex workers across the diaspora in Toronto, Paris and Hong Kong”.
“The women, she said, “are de facto being seen as sex workers and being scapegoated as such. Removing the anti-sex-work component really removes the crux of what this specific kind of racism is about: the fetishization of Asian women’s bodies, the objectification of their bodies and the assumption that Asian women are obviously going to be providing sexual services at massage parlors . . . The conflation of massage parlors and sex workers without any nuance is very specific to anti-Asian racism against Asian women.”
Red Canary Song was founded in the wake of the death of Yang Song, a massage parlor worker in Flushing, Queens, who fell four stories on to the sidewalk in November 2017 during a New York police department vice sting. Two months earlier, she had been arrested and charged with prostitution; during the November raid, police were attempting to arrest her again for allegedly engaging in sex work. Before her death she told her family that she had been sexually assaulted by a man posing as an undercover police officer.
“The solution here is not to have more funding for the police to protect massage parlor workers or to start an anti-Asian taskforce to guard Chinatown,” Esther said. “The solution here is to divest from policing altogether and to really reinvest in these labor issues, to help women pay their rent, and to get them the Covid support they need right now that they’re not getting.”
As more details about the victims’ identities come out, Lam agreed that the outcome should be the same, regardless of their line of work.
“Not all massage parlor workers provide sexual services, but some do,” she said. “But no matter what services they provide, they deserve rights and safety. They are facing multiple layers of oppression.””
read more: guardian, 18.03.2021.
russia’s first female train driver gets behind the wheel.
“As the first female suburban light rail train driver in Russia, Yelena Lysenko-Saltykova, 25, is one of a small, but growing band of women doing jobs that were off limits for decades until January, when Russia slashed its list of banned occupations from 476 to 100.
And in Moscow's sprawling underground rail system, 12 women became metro drivers for the first time in its modern history, with commemorative Barbie dolls marking the occasion. Over the next five years, the metro plans to train and recruit 500 female drivers.”
read more: moscowtimes, 08.03.2021. calvertjournal, 05.01.2021.
Source: instagram.com
women of the black panther party. mural by rachel wolfe-goldsmith, commissioned by jilchristina vest in west oakland. mural progress, 19.02.2021.
read more: eastbaytimes, 13.02.2021. sfchronicle, 17.02.2021. and: “dr. huey p. newton way dedicated on west oakland’s 9th street.” eastbaytimes, 17.02.2021.
Source: Flickr / dianneyee
women of the black panther party. mural by rachel wolfe-goldsmith, commissioned by jilchristina vest in west oakland.
“I want people, specifically young girls, to be able to walk up to my house and look up, have their shoulders go back, have them stand up stronger and feel the pride that this is their history, and they have something to be celebrated.” —Jilchristina Vest
read more: eastbaytimes, 13.02.2021. sfchronicle, 17.02.2021.
“Nuria Fernandez, is leaving her post in Silicon Valley to serve the US Department of Transportation under President-elect Joe Biden.
Fernandez, general manager and CEO of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), stepped down Tuesday to accept the position with the federal government.
“It has been pure joy to lead the VTA organization and see the early seeds of plans develop into programs and projects that will continue to transform mobility in this region for many years to come,” Fernandez said in a statement. “In my seven years, my team of talented public servants delivered great transportation accomplishments, of which I was humbly a part of in making our community better.”
Fernandez’s role in the U.S. Department of Transportation has not yet been announced, but an online newsletter from Politico reported Tuesday that the new administration’s plan is to appoint her to deputy administrator initially, with the intention of later making her the administrator, pending Senate confirmation. The DOT is expected to make an official announcement about her appointment in the coming days, according to a VTA spokesperson.
Fernandez, who is of Jamaican descent and was born in Panama, was the first woman and first person of color to head the VTA, which oversees transit and highway operations in Santa Clara County. She was the third VTA general manager since its inception in 1995 and served in the role for the past seven years.
“San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo called Fernandez a “wonderfully collaborative and insightful colleague” who “prodded the VTA to break out of conventional, rigid thinking.”
“I’m particularly grateful for her work in enabling the BART extension — the largest public works project in our county’s history –to proceed over, through, and around the many obstacles that have been put in the project’s path,” Liccardo said in a statement.
Fernandez joins the U.S. Department of Transportation with more than 35 years of experience. Before coming to Silicon Valley, she served in leadership positions at some of the nation’s busiest transit agencies, including Chief Operating Officer of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Senior Vice President of Design and Construction for the Chicago Transit Authority and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. She also served as Commissioner for the Chicago Department of Aviation overseeing O’Hare and Midway Airports.
The acclaimed transit leader holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Bradley University and a master’s in business administration from Roosevelt University in Illinois.
Fernandez will serve under Former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, who is Biden’s nominee to be Secretary of Transportation. Buttigieg is scheduled for a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday morning.”
read more: 29.01.2021.
stay safe. bb.yayarea in oakland.
Source: instagram.com