VAGINA DENTATA
»We won't take no crap! We call upon all women to engage in a militant confrontation! Does he pinch your ass, don't turn the other cheek – punch his!« This is the message from a group of women who have decided to take the law into their own hands in the fight for their own integrity ...
Women who strike back and who organize themselves in gangs have appeared throughout the world and also in Denmark. Faklen has spoken with a female gang called Vagina Dentata, which is the group that has manifested itself most clearly through various actions and in the media.
»We call upon all women to get together and form gangs, and actively to fight all kinds of discrimination against women.« This is one of the messages from the declaration of action made by the group. The gang was formed recently, and its members see themselves as »revolutionary feminists«. For security reasons they are always anonymous when appearing in the media.
The women come from different backgrounds but they have found a common platform in the group and its actions. Some know each other from the milieu of revolutionary feminists and the female gang called Phoolan Devi. Many have a political and party-political background.
One of the women from Vagina Dentata explains that the name of the group (latin: the vagina with teeth) is a Freudian concept which is used about the woman as a monster – a metaphor of the male fear of castration, but the gang has used it as a symbol of »women who fight back or bite«. This metaphor exists in several mythologies as the myth of the »cunt with teeth«.
The group was formed last year in connexion with a number of rapes which frightened the citizens of Silkeborg. As an alternative to the advice of the Chief of Police who called upon women to stay indoors, Vagina Dentata sent out the afore-mentioned declaration of action by occupying Politikens Hus in Copenhagen. In the declaration is says: »Don't put up with being told to stay at home because men commit rape.« And to the men: »We call upon all men to – as a gesture of solidarity – stay home at night, or only go out accompanied by a woman after eight o'clock in the evening, until all women can move freely.«
Female gangs and violent self-defence
The women of Vagina Dentata have found inspiration in many different places, but primarily among women who have dared to fight. »All women who fight are an inspiration,« Vagina Dentata points out. Names like Emma Goldman, anarchist and revolutionary, Angela Davis, American communist and freedom-fighter, and Lorena Bobbitt, who cut off her husband's penis because he had raped and abused her over years. She has become an ideal to many women throughtout the world, and many even speak of a cult surrounding her. Also the Indian woman Phoolan Devi is mentioned with admiration. Being without caste she had to put up with being raped by her husband and other men from the village. After having been abducted by a gang of robbers, to which she was later admitted, she returned to her village and killed 11 of the men who had raped her. The many years of abuse, first in the village and later in prison, didn't break her will to fight. Today, she has been elected to the Indian Parliament, but she had to flee because the legal system reopened her case.
As the selection of women illustrates, to Vagina Dentata it is concrete action that counts: »A lot can be learned, but practise is crucial.«
»We are also each other's role-models,« says one of the women. »We learn from each other. Some of us are more daring and that serves as an inspiration to the others. We hope to be an inspiration to other women as well, so they can see that if we can do it, they also can«.
Even though the female gang phenomenon is rather new in Denmark, Vagina Dentata reports of countries like Italy and Germany, where organized patrols of women have existed for some time. Here in Denmark groups of women are spread throughout the country, but not all of them are prepared to use the term »female gang« about themselves.
The interest an consciousness-raising surrounding the issues of Vagina Dentata, is increasing. And even though it is a new phenomenon that women assume the right to fight back, according to Vagina Dentata, there has always been strong feminist powers in groups of women as well as in single individuals. However, Vagina Dentata see is as their purpose to create a new, stronger and more radical feminism which will bring about changes both of attitudes and in practise. Unlike the picture created by the press, Vagina Dentata is not a kind of emergency unit: »We are not a central you can call which then shows up with baseball bats«. On the contrary, they try to form a network of cooporating female groups, which in this way will stand stronger. »We try to mobilize women to join us in a movement,« says the group. »We must send out some signals saying: We can and we will fight back. And we have the right to do so! It has to do with saying no to the role as a victim, not to accept being a victim. This is a provocation to many, but it is important to fight back and go against all the myths and prejudices which make most people believe that women can't fight. Because we can!« This is the clear message from Vagina Dentata.
No to submissiveness
»Violence against women – rape at least, is the crime punished far most lightly compared to how serious it is. It is a crime that pays!«
According to Vagina Dentata, the solution is to free oneself from the traditional female role with all its expectations and prohibitions women are brought up to accept. »It is part of our society, our upbringing, which means the whole system we live in. In contrast to men, women are brought up not to be aggressive, and instead turn the problem against themselves: »I have probably done ...« and »I shouldn't have said ...« but when you get the feeling of revenge, or want to take revenge, it is to get it out of your system and aim it at the one who caused it. If a women is attacked, there is always a tendency to try to justify it by her behaviour, her lack of ability to say no or the way she dresses. But we want to make it perfectly clear, that no one is entitled to commit an attack!«
Therefore, the group has advocated new solutions which in the eyes of many are quite radical: »We have some possible solutions. There are alternatives to wearing something else, walk another way home, or to even stay home, which are the current alternatives available to women in our society.« Their declaration speaks of a militant confrontation. »We are only saying: Also women can get angry and aggressive. We have been brought up to avoid fights, and therefore we haven't learnt it. But it is possible for all women to dare to defend themselves, one way or the other.« Of course there are situations in which the woman is not strong enough to act, but their opinion is that she can call to other women for help.
Experience shows, that their sanctions work. Vagina Dentata can see that they have already had an effect on other women. They have received positive feed-back from many individuals, both unofficially as well as from people who step forward and grant their support. Personally the women feel that their effort has borne fruit. They feel the change daily, it be on the street or among their acquintances. Asked about how a man reacts to them when they fight back, one of the women says: »Usually, he gets very surprised. My experience is always: Respect. But as a matter of fact have I gotten out of many unpleasant situations by doing only very little. It is about signalling that you are ready to go all the way. You get a different self-esteem, self-respect.«
»If you take action, many men will begin to realize that rape doesn't pay,« explains another. In this way the group has a large preventive effect, not only for themselves but also for other women. The more women who realize that it is possible for them to learn to defend themselves, the fewer attacks will be attempted by men.
It has come as no surprise to Vagina Dentata that many of their acquintances have reacted negatively. »Since we attack something so fundamental, there are no men or women who won't be affected by it. Many of us have had to say goodbye to friends,« they explain. Even though those people are previous comrades from the outermost left-wing, many others are against their points of view and they way they handle things. The group tells us about a case in which a man they all knew had beaten up his girl-friend who had to go to the hospital: »Most of the people from our old milieu felt sorry for the man, because he had gotten so far out. He had to be helped. Others had read that a victim of violence was unable to think clearly for the next 4 months. This was then used as an argument for not listening to the girl, because she was apparently temporarily insane.« In contrast, the woman had the full sympathy of Vagina Dentata, and they dissociated themselves from the man who had maltreated her.
Also their ideas regarding the family differ from the general attitude. They find that a woman who is submitted to attacks by her husband, should under no circumstances have to stay with him for the sake of the children. It is their experience that even many people on the left-wing think that it is a child's right that its parents find a way to make things work out. In this way Vagina Dentata settles with some of the attitudes and moral codices which they find to be very inhibiting to women.
The right to revenge.
Asked whether they approve of more severe sentences for rape, they answer that this is not their agenda. They try to influence women and not the system. »It is not that we go against it. Not at all. But to us it doesn't really matter. No judge should decide what shall happen to the rapist. That is up to the woman.«
Vagina Dentata declines that it is sufficient to let society punish the offender: »If a society where women are not raped and oppressed should exist, then it would have to be a society where women have their own body and their own life in their power. This power will not just be given to us. We'll have to fight to get it by defining for ourselves when an act is an attack and when action must be taken.«
One of them explains: »It is best that it is I who define what is good for me. Society can't tell me. Women have different limits. You can't just make a rule which says that a smack in the ass costs two punched-in teeth or the like. It doesn't work that way. It must be up to every woman to judge when her limits have been transgressed, and if she will fight back, and, if so, by what means. The only rule is that she has the right to do it.«
Asked what sanctions are reasonable to use against a rapist they say: »Any means necessary. We must take responsibility. We have to find solutions to the problems we encounter, because nobody does it for us. If the woman has the strength and the power in a given situation, she is of course allowed to use all means. All tricks are valid.«
Vagina Dentata doesn't think either, that there is an absolute limit to when killing can be justified: »At least that is not for us to decide. That must be a matter for each individual. We don't want a standard saying that all women should kill the offender. But we think it is perfectly all right if they do. If a woman decides to take revenge or take back the freedom she was deprived of, then we are behind her 100 percent, and we have no moral scruples about that.«
In relation to self-defence there is a common distinction between direct action in the situation and revenge later on, but to Vagina Dentata it doesn't matter at all when the woman chooses to react. Both kinds of reaction are valid: »You must act when you have the strength to do it. There is no period of limitation. Have you been raped and had a nervous breakdown and don't find the strength until years later, then there is no one who can show up and tell you: »But that happened so many years ago« or »That doesn't count«. It could have ruined your life until then. It has to do with the individual woman. It is a question of her having experienced an attack and a degradation she must free herself from. What is most important is that the individual woman defines her own limits and when they have been transgressed.«