Tiger Beatdown: November 25th, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women #16days

I wrote about the Day against gender violence but also about the Twitter campaign under the #16days hashtag which is an ongoing conversation to highlight issues of violence against women.

Yet, I’ve been following the hashtag because I am attempting to Storify daily highlights and all I see is this narrow and dangerous definition of what constitutes gender violence and who are regarded as women who experience it. A campaign that does not decisively include all groups who encounter gender violence is not going to be an effective one. Moreover, a campaign that actively leaves out the specific forms of violence experienced by trans women, lesbian women, gender queer folks who are forcefully identified as women, disabled women and or women of color is going to actively harm all of these people by erasing them and their struggles from the public eye. What good is a campaign against gender violence that does not actively promote inclusion of those who need to have their issues heard the most?